My 86-year-old dad, Allan Yaffe, opted to kill himself during the second week of January last year rather than live one more week in a body he called “a bag of garbage.”

Last Friday’s B.C. Supreme Court ruling against the Criminal Code’s prohibition of physician-assisted suicide took me back to the circumstances of his relatively quick death.

For at least a year before Dad faced down the nothingness he anticipated in death, he’d toyed with the notion of calling it quits.

He’d been living rather unhappily for about four years in a Vancouver nursing home — “a warehouse for the dying,” he labelled it — and, wheelchair bound, began feeling tortured by his deteriorating physical condition.

Two years earlier, my mother, living at the same home, had died of pneumonia. A year earlier, Dad had gone blind. His hearing, too, was failing.

He had been on kidney dialysis three times weekly for some six years — a ritual he positively detested.

He had lately developed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and had to be hooked up to oxygen.

He also had problems with both his bladder and rectum.

Meanwhile, poor circulation left his legs below the knee, including his feet, perpetually infected; rotting for all practical purposes and forcing him to face the prospect of amputation.

He told me repeatedly that his life no longer was worth living, that he didn’t want to have to keep coping with all the physical trauma being thrown his way, that he was prepared to go and it would be a relief.

The thing was, Dad always knew he had the power to order up his own death simply by curtailing his dialysis.

In that sense, the Criminal Code discriminates against those who must rely on a helping hand to reach the Pearly Gates.

Three and a half days into my father’s dialysis boycott — a briefer than anticipated period during which time morphine medication failed to fully diminish either his discomfort or acute awareness — Dad crossed to the other side in his brown leather La-Z-Boy.

Of course, I had no idea how to go about accompanying him on his final journey. I listened in those last days as he confided a few things about his life that I’d never known. I took him a takeout hotdog — his final food request, which he wound up not being able to get down.

In the year and a half since then, I’ve thought often, it was a mercy for him to pass on.

And it would be a similar mercy for other mentally aware folks who, like my Dad, face a life of abject suffering and want a similar release but require a doctor’s help.

Politicians dread dealing with such sensitive social issues that polarize the electorate. They know there will be little upside, in terms of popular appeal, for them in supporting the necessary Criminal Code change. But it’s the humane thing for Parliament to do.

The fact physician-assisted suicide has become available in Oregon and the Netherlands should provide a guide for the government in crafting the necessary safeguards to ensure any system of euthanasia is not abused, that mentally depressed individuals are not given free rein to just opt for suicide.

The Harper government has not yet determined whether it will appeal last Friday’s court ruling. Rather than waste time on such an appeal, Conservatives should get on with the task of easing the way for those, like my father, seeking to escape their untreatable suffering.

Barbara Yaffe is a columnist with the Vancouver Sun.

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Published on Wednesday 20 June 2012 09:29

A BRAVE wife has turned out to be the perfect match for her husband in his desperate search for a kidney donor.

Michele and Gavin Johnson were celebrating today after doctors gave them the go-ahead for the life-changing transplant, saving the 50-year-old from an anxious wait for a suitable organ.

Experts estimate the odds of receiving a good match from a spouse are as high as “one in a million”.

“She is absolutely amazing,” said Gavin. “If she hadn’t put herself forward then I could have been waiting years for a donor, with my condition getting worse and worse.

“I don’t know what I would have done without her help.”

As well as dramatically improving his health, the operation will also save the HGV driver from a lifetime of dialysis.

“I had a transplant about 23 years ago, which is progressively failing,” he said. “I have long-term chronic kidney failure and with the prospect of years on dialysis things were not looking good.

“My wife unselfishly didn’t hesitate to offer her kidney to help my quality of life.

“Over the last couple of years, my health has got worse and worse and I’m now at the stage where I need a transplant.”

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But Gavin and Michele, 46, from Washington, faced an agonising wait as medics carried out a series of tests.

“There were about five or six tests over eight months,” he said. “The doctors examine blood, tissue, pretty much everything to make sure that you are a match.

“At every stage, there is a chance that you could be knocked back.

“At first it wasn’t too bad, but as you get further and further along you start to get more and more anxious.

“There is always the fear that it will be snatched away from you at the last minute.

“But we’ve now had confirmation that the operation can go ahead. We’re a perfect match.”

The couple, who have been married for nine years, are now expected to undergo surgery at the Freeman Hospital, in Newcastle, in the coming months.

“It will make such a huge difference,” said dad-of-three Gavin. “At the minute, I’m not able to work and I have to undergo regular dialysis, which can be a challenge in itself.

“Essentially, you have dialysis fluid drained in and out of your stomach. You try to get on with your life, but it is a bit like having a Sunday dinner every few hours.

“You struggle to find the energy to do anything and then it starts all over again.

“The transplant will give both of us much more freedom.

“We can get on with our lives.”

Kidney Research UK estimates the chances of receiving a good match from a non-related living donor in the same household, such as a spouse, can be as high as “one in a million”.

Professor Neil Turner, chairman of the group, said: “For the 7,000 people in the UK who need a kidney transplant, their best chance of finding a match will be from an immediate family member, such as a parent, child or sibling.

“The chances of receiving a good match from a spouse or partner are much, much lower, although it is not unheard of.

“Making transplants better is an important part of our work and more research is needed to help the three million people in this country at risk from kidney disease, by finding a cure.

“Unfortunately, however, we’re currently only able to fund a fifth of all projects aimed at combating the illness.”

Twitter: @SunderlandEcho

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