Dia de los Muertos (Day Of The Dead) 2017

[M]ore than 500 years ago, when the Spanish Conquistadors landed in what is now Mexico, they encountered natives practicing a ritual that seemed to mock death.

It was a ritual the indigenous people had been practicing at least 3,000 years. A ritual the Spaniards would try unsuccessfully to eradicate.

A ritual known today as Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead.

The ritual is celebrated in Mexico and certain parts of the United States. Although the ritual has since been merged with Catholic theology, it still maintains the basic principles of the Aztec ritual, such as the use of skulls.

Today, people don wooden skull masks called calacas and dance in honor of their deceased relatives. The wooden skulls are also placed on altars that are dedicated to the dead. Sugar skulls, made with the names of the dead person on the forehead, are eaten by a relative or friend, according to Mary J. Adrade, who has written three books on the ritual.

The Aztecs and other Meso-American civilizations kept skulls as trophies and displayed them during the ritual. The skulls were used to symbolize death and rebirth.

The skulls were used to honor the dead, whom the Aztecs and other Meso-American civilizations believed came back to visit during the monthlong ritual.

Unlike the Spaniards, who viewed death as the end of life, the natives viewed it as the continuation of life. Instead of fearing death, they embraced it. To them, life was a dream and only in death did they become truly awake.

“The pre-Hispanic people honored duality as being dynamic,” said Christina Gonzalez, senior lecturer on Hispanic issues at Arizona State University. “They didn’t separate death from pain, wealth from poverty like they did in Western cultures.”

However, the Spaniards considered the ritual to be sacrilegious. They perceived the indigenous people to be barbaric and pagan.

In their attempts to convert them to Catholicism, the Spaniards tried to kill the ritual.

But like the old Aztec spirits, the ritual refused to die.

To make the ritual more Christian, the Spaniards moved it so it coincided with All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day (Nov. 1 and 2), which is when it is celebrated today.

Previously it fell on the ninth month of the Aztec Solar Calendar, approximately the beginning of August, and was celebrated for the entire month. Festivities were presided over by the goddess Mictecacihuatl. The goddess, known as “Lady of the Dead,” was believed to have died at birth, Andrade said.

Today, Day of the Dead is celebrated in Mexico and in certain parts of the United States and Central America.

“It’s celebrated different depending on where you go,” Gonzalez said.

In rural Mexico, people visit the cemetery where their loved ones are buried. They decorate gravesites with marigold flowers and candles. They bring toys for dead children and bottles of tequila to adults. They sit on picnic blankets next to gravesites and eat the favorite food of their loved ones.

In Guadalupe, the ritual is celebrated much like it is in rural Mexico.

“Here the people spend the day in the cemetery,” said Esther Cota, the parish secretary at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. “The graves are decorated real pretty by the people.”

Complete Article HERE!

A Checklist Before Dying

By

[I]n early 2015, my mom was in a car wreck. She sustained extensive injuries and died two weeks later. I was 35 at the time, surrounded by chaos, and had no idea what I was doing.

You hate to look on the bright side of life-altering tragedy, but I’m still so grateful to my mom for having her affairs in order. Because her accident was so sudden, it took a few days to locate her end-of-life documents. Once we did, it felt like there was a shift in my brain chemistry. We now had guidelines to help us respond to this terrible, traumatic event.

A lot of people believe it’s too difficult or macabre to think about, much less plan for, your own death. But confusion, exhaustion, and terror are the norm in the wake of enormous loss. Planning ahead helps reduce your family’s stress when they’re already in their own personal hell.

If you have a contentious relationship with your family of origin, it’s extra important for you to draw up wills and other relevant legal documents. If something terrible were to happen to you, somebody you don’t like or respect but happen to share blood with may have more say than the people who are actually important to you. Paperwork can help prevent that.

Here is an overview of how to prepare for the (inevitable) worst:

Your Last Will and Testament

Most of us learn about wills from television, though I’m not sure there’s actually ever been a dramatic scene immediately after a funeral where a lawyer sits down with a bunch of people and parcels out the deceased’s belongings.

A will serves two functions:

  1. To appoint an executor of the estate
  2. To express the deceased’s wishes about distribution of assets

It doesn’t matter how much or how little a person had in this world. When they die, their assets and debts become the property of “the Estate of [Deceased Person].” An executor of an estate is the person put in charge of making sure the estate is handled properly—which does sometimes come down to parceling out the deceased’s belongings.

You should know that, even if you say “please leave all my money to these people or this organization,” if you die with a bunch of debt, it’s likely the debt will have priority over your wishes.

A durable power of attorney

This document outlines how incapacitated you have to be to let some (specific) person handle your money. Even if you don’t want anyone else to touch your money, consider the logistics; setting up a power of attorney lets someone else sign checks to pay your light bill or rent, for example, without technically committing fraud. (We always forget about the little stuff.)

You have to specifically appoint a person for this role. Once you die this document ceases to be of any value and the executor of your estate takes over.

Your medical directives

This document lays out the manner in which you wish to live vs. do not wish to live. These documents vary massively by state. In general, states with Right to Die laws will have more much more detailed requirements. If you draft a medical directive in one state and then wind up becoming grievously ill or injured in another state, they should still honor the spirit (if not the letter) of this document.

I did mine in Oregon. It’s a three-page list of yes/no scenarios. You have to consider your own mortality, but other than that, it’s really not that daunting. All you have to do is express what you’d like to happen to you, should the worst happen.

You have to specifically appoint a person to execute your medical directives as well. A doctor will not look at this document and enforce it based on their own judgments about your condition. So make sure the person you appoint to do this is someone who understands your wishes and respects your values, because this document will empower them to either enforce or override your choices.

An estate attorney

A will, a durable power of attorney, and a medical directive should all be drawn up with a lawyer. The people that specialize in this area of the law are called estate attorneys. The estate attorney should be able to tell you upfront how much it will cost to draw these documents up and a lot of times you can work out a payment plan with them.

This attorney will keep a copy of each of these documents in their files. You should also keep copies in a safe place that other people know about and can access should you be in a medical crisis and unable to communicate. It may also be wise to give copies to the people who have appointed roles in your end-of-life documents.

Life insurance

You should have life insurance if you have any outstanding debts or dependents. My understanding is that your life insurance should equal your debt + five years of your salary + your child’s/children’s estimated college tuition, but do your own research on what’s best for you—and do some research on which of your debts are forgiven in death and which are not.

If you have no major debt and no dependents, you could skip the life insurance part, but keep in mind that life insurance beneficiaries can also be parents or other relatives, all of whom could probably use the money—especially if they are anticipating support in their retirement years and/or paying for the cost of your funeral.

Love letters

Any final lovely words you want to write to the wonderful people in your life? Better yet, any petty stuff you want to make sure you get the legit last word on? Write it in a letter, seal it in an envelope and keep with the other documents.

Lists of accounts, important contacts, assets and debts

Accounts: A list of all your credit cards, checking and savings accounts, including where they’re held and branch information if necessary.

Important contact info: The attorney who helped draft your legal documents, your doctor, your health insurance, your pet’s veterinarian, etc. If someone had to suddenly take over your whole life, what do they need to know?

Assets: Retirement accounts, a 401(k) program at your work, any property you might own (with the mortgage holder listed), savings bonds, certificates of deposit, etc. You can leave out the account numbers if you have privacy concerns; what you’re really doing is making a road map for whoever will be handling your affairs.

Debts and bills: Student loans, credit cards, mortgages, auto loans, etc. Don’t forget your rent, utilities, subscriptions, child support, memberships, and donations that auto-renew. List every single thing that bills out of your account monthly, quarterly, annually.

Update this information every time you change your clocks and put the revision date at the top. (Also, change your smoke alarm batteries while you’re at it.)

Funeral preparations and preferences

You can get as specific as you want with this, but at the bare minimum let people know if you want a burial or cremation and where you want your remains to go. (Especially if you come from a large family or if there are any religious or cultural differences to consider.)

Obituary draft

Obituaries have to be filed for a few reasons. Many states have public disclosure laws for debt collection that require an obituary. Also, people might want to come to your funeral (or at least know you died) who aren’t in your immediate social and family circles. Draft a super basic obituary that includes where you were born along with the names of your parents, siblings, children, etc. A few broad strokes about your life, where you went to school, worked, what you enjoyed doing, etc.

It’s going to be painful for your loved ones to write about you in the past tense, so giving them a rough draft can be very helpful—especially because the obituary usually has to be written immediately  after a person’s death.

Make sure people know where this stuff is!

Keep it somewhere secure. But let the right people know how to access it. A fireproof safe in your house? Make sure someone knows where the keys are. A safe deposit box? Make sure someone else has access to it. In a folder on your laptop labeled “Death Prep?” You’d better give someone else the password and the file path. Under the floorboards? Whatever, just make sure people can find it and have access to it if you are suddenly incapacitated.

Final note

The less mess you leave for someone to clean up, the less you’ll complicate the grief for people who love you. All the secrets you have stashed around your life? Someone has to clean that up. Know that the dead have zero privacy; all of your porn, medical history and drug habits will be 100 percent somebody else’s business now. Appoint an executor who has some chill, and good luck in the next plane of existence.

Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer, nor a financial advisor. I’m terrible at math and I hate dealing with people. This is not professional advice and you should definitely pay an actual grown-up $200/hour to explain how the basic tenets of our society functions because your pain, fear and confusion is the grease that keeps the ruthless machine of capitalism churning. Above all, do not sue me if you mess up your own life!

Complete Article HERE!

The Symptoms of Protracted Dying

[G]eraldine was warmly opinionated and, along with her husband, she’d raised her four daughters to be the same.

When work settled and time allowed, she melted into the couch next to any of her children who were home and turned on the Hallmark channel. If a movie showed people who couldn’t care for themselves, she would remark, “I don’t want to live like that,” or “if that’s me, don’t bother doing all that.”

On May 25, a clot blocked a blood vessel in Geraldine’s heart. Her husband performed CPR. She was whisked to the hospital, where her heart survived, but lack of oxygen launched her brain into uncontrollable seizures. At age 56, her melodic Irish accent was silenced.

Her lips sagged around a breathing tube when I met her three weeks later. Her limbs lay wherever we put them. Kinked gray hair stood in all directions from her scalp, pushed aside by electrodes that recorded brain activity.

In the small conference room in our neuro intensive care unit, we discussed Geraldine’s prognosis with her family.

“We can place a long-term breathing tube in her neck and a feeding tube in her stomach,” I said, “but there are no cases in the medical literature of someone like her living independently again. The best we could hope for is a life of near-complete dependence.”

“When we first came to the hospital, doctors told us my mom might be brain-dead,” one of Geraldine’s daughters countered. “Now, she takes breaths on her own sometimes. She’s already improving.”

Just as Geraldine was stubborn and exceptional in life, her family believed she would be exceptional in beating her prognosis.

“It might be different if my mom was 70 or 80,” her daughter went on, “but she’s only 56.”

For Geraldine’s family, the immediate fear of watching her die outweighed the unfamiliar pain of sustaining her on machines and watching her disappear in a long-term care facility.

Our medical team had seen hundreds of people like Geraldine, most of whom returned to the hospital month after month to manage complications of immobility. Sparse cases of recoveries were overwhelmed by painful, expensive, drawn-out deaths, ones we would never wish for ourselves or our own families.

But for Geraldine’s family, every decision was new. For them, nobody was like Geraldine.

In every other part of medicine, doctors make recommendations for medications, lifestyle changes and surgeries. We don’t offer cancer patients six different chemotherapy regimens and ask them to weigh the pros and cons. Yet when it comes to end-of-life decisions, doctors are terrified of violating patient autonomy. We are scared of our own medical opinions.

Instead of saying, “I recommend…,” we often offer a platter of life-prolonging measures, most of which are unlikely to improve a patient’s quality of life, but which offer the possibility of hope. The patient’s heart will still beat. Her personality will be gone, but her chest will still rise and collapse. Families see an opportunity for loss to be delayed, perhaps even dodged. Then we are surprised when they take us up on the offer to prolong dying.

“I think she would want more time to try and recover,” Geraldine’s daughter said.

So we kept Geraldine alive. A plastic breathing tube sprouted from her neck and a feeding tube with peach-colored formula buried itself in her stomach.

In the hospital, Geraldine’s family learned the common complications of immobility: infection, blood clots and bedsores.

When the infection started, a fever sounded the alarm. We counted the possible causes. Geraldine had a breathing tube in her windpipe, a feeding tube in her stomach and an IV line in her neck, each an access road for bacteria. Lying in bed put her at risk for pneumonia and urinary tract infections. Like mosquitoes in standing water, infections proliferate when the body is still.

Geraldine’s blood clots weren’t a surprise. Medical students are inculcated with the famous triad of conditions that predispose patients to clots, and Geraldine had all of them. Her body was inflamed and torn from the heart attack, infections and procedures that caused her blood vessels to release molecules that helped blood to clot. Lying in a hospital bed, not moving anything unless it was moved, her circulation slowed. Pools of static blood dried into a thick paste in her blood vessels.

Thanks to aggressive nursing care, when Geraldine developed a bedsore it was managed at an early stage. But the term “bedsore” is an understated euphemism. It recalls the annoyance of a cold sore or the tenderness of muscles after the gym. The grotesque image of bone pressing through skin is hidden.

In people who are immobilized, bedsores develop under bony prominences like the heels and the skull. At first, the skin becomes red. If the bedsore progresses, the skin’s outer layer, then the inner layer, breaks down. Finally, in the most severe stage, bone, muscles and tendons are exposed. The entire process can happen in just a few days.

Sixty days after her heart attack, Geraldine was stable enough to leave the I.C.U. She was in a persistent vegetative state — unresponsive to external stimuli. She opened her eyes, as if she were about to say something, but nothing ever came out. Her gaze roved around the room. An ambulance took her to a long term care facility, where she was dependent on machines and people.

“When you first hear someone you love is sick, you think it’s a short term thing,” her daughter told me over the phone a month later. “It’s adjusting to the long term aspect that’s hard.” Geraldine’s daughter woke up at 5 a.m. every day to spend time with her mom before work.

“I think it’s more of a disappointment for my dad,” she said. “He told us that if he ever gets sick, he doesn’t want any of this.”

Geraldine’s family lived between hope and guilt, with the weight of each side in flux. “If my mom knew what we were doing right now, she’d probably be mad at us,” her daughter reflected a few weeks ago.

Yet in the same breath, her voice rose and she said: “My mom’s a fighter, so I think she would be happy with us giving her a shot. We’re hoping for this miraculous turnaround.”

It did not come. Geraldine died of sepsis earlier this month, after more than four months of care.

“People don’t know what they’re in for,” Geraldine’s daughter reflected after the funeral. “It hurt all of us to see her like that.”

In the final days of Geraldine’s life, a doctor asked if the family of another patient in the I.C.U. could visit Geraldine to see what prolonged dying looked like. Geraldine’s family was kind enough to agree.

The visiting family chose to transition their loved one to hospice care.

Complete Article HERE!

‘Memento Mori’: USU exhibit focuses on the art of death and mourning

Michael Wolgemut’s 1943 piece “The Dance of Death”

By Sean Dolan

[D]ylan Burns doesn’t dwell on the fact that he will eventually die, but he is aware of the inevitable.

That’s one of the side effects of spending several months preparing an art exhibit that celebrates the macabre. Burns, the digital scholarship librarian at Utah State University’s Merrill-Cazier Library, is the curator of, “Memento Mori: The Art of Death and Mourning.”

The exhibit itself is a reminder of death. Black curtains beckon the viewer to stand in the center of tall white boards arranged in the shape of a coffin. Inside the display, images of skulls and centuries-old drawings of dancing skeletons hand-picked from rare books in the library’s special collections invite the silent contemplation of death.

“The whole exhibit asks this question — implores people to ‘memento mori,’ which is ‘remember that you’ll die,’” Burns said. “And that’s something that I think we don’t do that often in our contemporary world.”

Bruns found inspiration for the exhibit in a collection of Compton Studio photographs, a family-run company founded in Brigham City in 1884. In addition to documenting life in Utah, the Compton Studio took elaborate funeral photos.

Dylan Burns

In one photo, three young children stare bleakly into the camera as their deceased sibling lies motionless in a cradle.

“They’re extraordinarily striking and intimate,” Burns said.

At the time, Burns said funerals and the handling of the deceased was generally left to the family. When a grandmother died, for example, the body would be washed, dressed and displayed in the parlor. Friends would come and pay tribute.

Over the past 100 years, Burns said death has become more sterile. As soon as someone dies, they are whisked away and embalmed behind closed doors, only to be seen briefly by the family.

“We have funeral homes and they take care of everything and it’s all kind of sanitized and it’s out of the home and out of the family,” he said.

Burns isn’t suggested that everyone should go out and wash their next dead family member, unless they want to. But there is a movement in some funeral homes called, “The Order of the Good Death,” which encourages people to approach death with a different attitude. Instead of fear and anxiety, this movement reminds people that death is a part of life.

“It’s sad, but it is what it is,” Burns said.

Using the funeral photos as a jumping off point, Burns then took a deep dive into the library’s special collections to find old sources that reminded one to “memento mori.”

Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius’s 1543 publication called, “De Humanis Corporis Fabrica,” depicts scientifically accurate sketches of skeletons with an artistic flare.

Burns said Vesalius was a doctor who made a significant contribution to the world’s medical knowledge. In addition to scientific experiments and dissections, Vesalius posed and sketched skeletons in ways that gives the appearance of contemplation of demise and death.

‘Memento Mori’: The art of death and mourning

“Yeah, they’re weird,” Burns said. “The point that I’m making here is I’m talking about these memento moris, which are these objects that remind you that we are going to die.”

One of the most striking, and locally significant, example of a memento mori is the skull of Old Ephraim, the mightiest grizzly bear known in Logan Canyon.

“We’re reminded that even the most powerful can’t escape death,” Burns said.

Another section of the exhibit is devoted to the allegory of the Danse Macabre, or the Dance of Death, which depicts motifs of skeletons dancing with the living. The exhibit displays the work of Hans Holbein, a 16th century German artist. Holbein drew skeletons interacting with powerful people, like the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope.

“No matter who you were, it came for everyone,” Burns said.

The exhibit, which will remain on display until Dec. 10, coincides with the library’s Family Art Day this Saturday. The event’s theme is, “Telling a Spooky Story — With Art!”

Children are invited to create Halloween-themed silhouettes from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. If they desire to explore the morbidity of death, kids can check out the adjacent “Memento Mori” exhibit.

Burns said part of his intention was to just invite people to think and talk about death. It’s going to happen to everyone, but it’s rarely discussed.

“I don’t think it’s healthy for it to be a taboo subject that we never talk about,” Burns said.

Complete Article HERE!

We need to address questions of gender in assisted dying

Gendered risks challenge the idea that women will always be acting autonomously.

By

[O]ne of the principal motivations behind current efforts to legalise assisted suicide in Victoria and New South Wales (and most jurisdictions) is patient autonomy. However, research suggests “gendered risks” may thwart women’s autonomy in end-of-life decisions, making them uniquely vulnerable to assisted suicide laws.

While eligibility under the Victorian and NSW bills requires that a patient must be suffering from a terminal illness from which they will likely die in 12 months, the concern for women is that the final decision to end their lives may nevertheless be influenced by risk factors that challenge the rhetoric of “choice”. Here are some of those “gendered risks”.

Longer life span

Women tend to live longer than men. This means they are more likely to develop diseases and disabling conditions, or experience elder abuse and discrimination, both of which could motivate the desire for assisted suicide.

The Australian Law Reform Commission’s report on elder abuse recognised that women are significantly more likely to be victims than men, and that the rate of neglect of older women could be as high as 20%.

More likely to experience their partner’s death

Women are also more likely to experience the death of a partner or spouse due to their relative longevity, and to be deprived of this support and companionship in older age. A 2013 Australian study found that living alone is an important predictor of suicide in older adults.

A 2016 US study found that loneliness was a key motivation for assisted suicide requests of patients with “psychiatric” disorders in the Netherlands. Of the cases reviewed, 70% were women and 76% were 50 years or older. One women in her 70s “without health problems” said she experienced life without her husband as a “living hell” and “meaningless”.

Fewer economic resources in old age

Women have fewer economic resources when they are older, the time when decisions about assisted suicide are most likely to occur.

This entrenched economic disadvantage limits their options for care and means they are more likely to face other financially related adversities.

Women are also more likely to have to pay for care than men due to their male partners and families being less likely to care for them.

All these factors could influence a decision on assisted suicide.

More self-sacrificial and less assertive

Women are arguably more self-sacrificial and less assertive than men, whether by nature, socialisation or simply in terms of society’s ideals about femaleness.

So, they may be more likely to request assisted suicide to spare their loved ones the burden of caring for them, or be persuaded that their life is unworthy of others’ care and their family’s resources.

In a study of assisted suicides where the majority of cases were women, the fear of being a burden was a prominent reason for deciding for death. The ethic of self-sacrifice was summed up by a friend of one of the suicides, who said:

She felt it was a gift to her family, sparing them the burden of taking care of her.

Preference for passive suicide methods

Women demonstrate a stronger preference for more structured, passive methods of suicide, with significant physician participation.

It is clear that increasing numbers of women decide to die when offered the more passive options of assisted suicide. The rate of assisted death of women in the Netherlands, Oregon and elsewhere is nearly four times that of the usual female suicide rate.

One explanation might be that decisions for assisted suicide fit in with cultural expectations of women as passive and compliant, and play out gender expectations of subordination and dominance in a profession where physicians are still predominantly male.

More likely to attempt suicide

Women are more likely to attempt suicide than men, as they are more prone to psychological problems such as depression.

While mental illness does not qualify a person for assisted suicide under the Victorian and NSW bills, neither does it disqualify them.

If assisted suicide is legalised, women’s greater propensity to attempt to take their lives as a result of psychological problems, coupled with their preference for more passive methods of suicide, could have a harmful compounding effect on women’s decisions to die. This may already be evident in the 2016 American study.

Entrenched patterns of violence against women

Female assisted suicide needs to be considered in light of pervasive male violence against women, particularly against intimates. Research indicates striking similarities between the broader patterns of male violence against women and at least one kind of assisted death: “mercy killing”.

American and Australian studies indicate that there are more female mercy killings in those countries, mostly by men, who are most often the woman’s partner, and these are characterised by the same themes of domination, possessiveness and control as other gender-based violence.

The prevalence of violence against women in Australia (particularly intimate partner violence) is a serious problem, and so it is vital that we understand whether the dynamics underlying other forms of gendered violence that result in the deaths of women may sometimes also underlie female assisted suicide.

Taking into account gender differences in health care is important. And if there is potential for gendered risks in legalising assisted suicide, this requires further consideration and research in advance of any legislative change.

These insights challenge the presumption that women who decide for assisted suicide are always exercising autonomy. Legalisation could in fact compound oppressive sociocultural influences and facilitate the last of many non-choices for some women.

Complete Article HERE!

Dying a good death—what we need from drugs that are meant to end life

There are a few drugs that can end life, and how we want to die should be considered.

by And

[G]enerally speaking, health care is aimed at relieving pain and suffering. This is also the motivation behind euthanasia – the ending of one’s own life, usually in the case of terminal illness characterised by excruciating pain.

There has been debate in Victoria about the drugs that should be used to end life if euthanasia is legalised. So which medications can we ensure would facilitate the best, medically-supervised death?

Medicine as poison

When it comes to the question of which medicines can, or even are meant to, kill us, the most important thing to remember is the old adage:

“The dose makes the poison.”

This concept is one on which the whole discipline of toxicology and medicines is founded. This is the meaning of the well-known symbol of the snake, wound around the bowl of Hygeia (the Greek goddess of health), representing medicine, which you see in pharmacies and medical centres around the world. The intertwining of poison and is a longstanding concept in the therapeutic use of medicines.

This is a very intricate science, and the reason we conduct clinical research. We need to trial different doses of new drugs to meticulously establish a safe but effective threshold for use.

In more practical terms, this means too much of any medicine can cause harm. Take, for example, the humble paracetamol. When taken following correct guidelines, it is a perfectly safe, effective pain killer used by millions of people worldwide. But taken in excessive quantities, it can cause irreparable liver damage, and if the patient is not given an antidote in a hospital, could lead to death.

What drugs are used in assisted dying?

The group of drugs most commonly used to end life is called the barbiturates. They cause the activity of the brain and nervous system to slow down. These drugs, used medicinally in small doses, can be taken short-term to treat insomnia, or seizures in emergencies. In different doses and administration techniques, these preparations can also be used as anaesthesia, to make us sleep through surgery.

An overdose of barbiturates is fatal. A large dose will effectively make the brain slow down to a point where it stops telling the body to keep the respiratory system working, and breathing ceases.

Both secobarbital capsules and pentobarbital (usually known as the brand name, Nembutal) liquid – (not to be mistaken for epilepsy medication phenobarbital) have been used either alone or in combination for physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia. They are also used in injectable forms for animal euthanasia.

These two products are tried and tested, have the advantage of years of use with the benefit of knowing the exact dose range needed, and with few adverse effects reported (such as unexpected pain, drawn-out death or failed death).

Their safety and efficacy in inducing a peaceful, swift and uneventful death has been proven around the world. They are the preferred drugs in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and some USA states where euthanasia is legal.

Other options exist, whether in combination or alone, but have limited evidence of use in euthanasia. Some drugs that cause excessive muscle relaxation and respiratory distress can end life, as can some pain killers commonly used in palliative care.

Drugs can also be used that fatally lower , cause heart attack, or block messages from the brain to the muscles, causing paralysis.

While all of these drugs are legally available in Australia, they could cause a long, protracted , with many more side effects that could cause distress and suffering at the end of life. Nembutal and its relatives are less likely to do so, with greater evidence from international practices than any other drugs that can end life.

The ‘best’ death

In Australia, Nembutal and secobarbital can be used for animals, but are illegal for human use. This makes implementation of the newly proposed euthanasia law in Victoria slightly more difficult. The proposed legislation does not seek to legalise the use of Nembutal and its relatives – but suggests a “drug cocktail” be concocted by a compounding pharmacist.

The Victorian government has reportedly approached Monash University’s pharmacy department to research the kind of pill that could be developed if the legislation passes. Therefore, no final description of this product has been released.

Some have suggested the mixture will be in powder form made with to induce a coma and eventually cause respiratory arrest. It may also use sedatives and muscle relaxants, a drug to slow down the heart, and an anti-epileptic to prevent seizure and induce relaxation of muscles. The constituents and doses are yet to be determined.

It’s difficult at this early stage to predict how this concoction would work and whether it would be easier or safer to use than drugs already tried and tested. This proposed product would need to be tested and results compared, as all are.

What is needed is a or a mixture of drugs that produce a painless, relatively quick and peaceful passing. We do not wish to see further suffering in the form of seizures, prolonged distress and pain. If no solution is certain, it would be wise to fall back on simply legalising what is already tried and tested.

Complete Article HERE!

“I couldn’t tame grief, but I could tame a hawk”

– Helen Macdonald talks her new BBC documentary

In a new BBC documentary, the author of H for Hawk explains how she became obsessed with training a goshawk following the death of her father

 
Ahead of her new BBC2 documentary H is for Hawk – a New Chapter, author Helen Macdonald explains how the death of her father led to an obsession with training a notoriously difficult to tame goshawk.

[T]en years ago my father, the renowned photo-journalist Alisdair Macdonald, had a heart attack while out on a photo assignment on a London street. His sudden, unexpected death at the age of 67 left me and my family reeling.

Everyone has different ways to cope with grief, but mine was hugely eccentric. I didn’t turn to drink, find solace in religion, or see a therapist. Instead I felt compelled to train a hawk. Not just any hawk, but a goshawk, one of the most hard to tame of all birds of prey.

I’d been a falconer for many years, but I’d never before wanted anything to do with goshawks. They had a reputation as moody, unpredictable, highly-strung and murderous creatures, more like leopards than birds. Something about their wildness chimed with the wildness of grief inside my heart. And while I knew I couldn’t tame grief, I knew I could tame a hawk.

So one August morning I picked up a ten-week-old female goshawk from a hawk breeder called Andy on a Scottish quayside. I drove her home, called her Mabel, and began the delicate process of winning her trust. It turned out to be the beginning of the strangest, darkest and most beautiful episodes of my life.

Growing up, I’d always loved birds, birds of prey most of all. I was as obsessed with birdwatching back then as my father had been with planes-spotting when he was small.

We gloried in how uncool our interests were. I always carried a pair of binoculars, he always carried a camera, and we were always watching the skies. We’d go out for long nature walks, turning over rocks to find snakes and bugs, collecting things to be identified back home. Dad taught me to see all the beauties of the natural world.

But he taught me much more. He was a patient, quiet, kind, gentle man. Those were the qualities I needed to tame and train my hawk. I had to put aside all the chaos and horror of grief in favour of patience, kindness, quietness, gentleness.

Falconry is not about the domination of a wild creature. You can’t menace or mistreat a hawk. You tame them through courtesy, positive reinforcement and gifts of raw meat.

In only a few weeks Mabel went from being a wild creature terrified of me to a playful, tame companion. We developed an incredibly close bond. I taught her to fly to my gloved fist for food, first on a line, and then completely free. I wanted her life to be as close as possible to that of a wild hawk, and flew her for hours every day out on the hillsides near my home. Every night she fell asleep on a perch on my living-room floor.

My life with Mabel made me wilder and wilder. There was no grief in my heart as I flew her, no future or past. Everything fell away. All that was left was the present moment, caught up in her barred wings as they flickered across frosty fields and slopes.

It was an all-consuming and beautiful life, but it wasn’t good for me. I became a muddy, thorn-scratched hermit. Mabel was everything I wanted to be: solitary, self-possessed, free from human hurts and grief. Only at my dad’s memorial service did I remember that human hands are for other human hands to hold, that they shouldn’t be reserved solely as perches for hawks.

With the help of family, friends, and a doctor, I found my way back home. I kept flying Mabel, but in a much less obsessive manner. My relationship with her took me to a wilder world and brought me back much changed.

It was an experience that will mark me forever. I don’t regret a single minute. I flew Mabel for several more seasons before a sudden untreatable infection carried her away. I still mourn her loss.

I ended up commemorating her and my dad in the book H Is for Hawk. As I wrote it I didn’t think anyone would read it, but to my surprise and joy it became a bestseller (it also won the 2014 Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction).

Now I’ve met readers all over the world who have shared their own stories of loss and wildness with me. They’ve taught me that while grief is the loneliest thing in the world, we all go through it. It’s part of what it means to be human. I treasure the new friends I’ve made after the book’s success, but only wish my dad were here to see it. He was a good friend, a wonderful father.

I still miss him to bits.

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