Death with dignity: Our personal experience
As jurisdictions and advocates nationwide grapple with medical assistance in dying, a Pearl District man tells his wife’s story
On Nov. 27, my wife, Patty, age 81, died peacefully at home in my arms with my two daughters at her side. The day before, our family, including our five grandchildren, celebrated Thanksgiving together. They knew this was her final goodbye, and we all hugged and cried with Patty and with each other.
Patty chose to die with dignity. We are fortunate that Patty and I moved to Portland 10 years ago, after I retired from my medical practice in Boston.
Oregon is one of only 10 states that allow physician-assisted death. Death with Dignity was enacted in 1997, when Oregon became the first state to allow terminally ill patients to voluntarily end their lives with lethal medications prescribed by a physician (1). Oregon and Vermont are the only states that allow terminally ill patients who are not residents to access physician-assisted deaths. However, physician-assisted death is now legal in most of Europe, Canada, Latin America and Asia (2).
Our family’s recent experience with Oregon’s Death with Dignity may help others to understand its process and value. Patty was successfully treated for breast cancer at age 54, but four years ago, metastatic cancer caused a hip fracture. Over the last four years, she had metastasis to other bones and the liver, each treated with apparent resolution.
Then, just six weeks ago, the cancer spread to her head and eye socket, causing excruciating pain. She was hospitalized for pain control, and we were told that further treatment for the cancer was not warranted. The pain was so severe that her blood pressure skyrocketed, her blood sodium plummeted, and she spent a few days in the intensive care unit.
We next met with the hospital palliative care team, who assured us that they could alleviate her pain. This was accomplished with massive doses of opioids. However, Patty became very sedated and suffered from an inability to urinate or defecate. We then arranged for hospice care at home. I naively thought that the hospice health care team would be able to expedite Patty’s end of life wishes by increasing the opioids if and when needed. The palliative care team said that was not the role of hospice. They also advised against my playing any role in the opioid dosing schedule, despite my medical background.
A close friend of mine in Portland had also lost his wife to cancer a few years earlier, and she had chosen to use Oregon’s Death with Dignity process. Patty, my daughters and I asked the hospital palliative care team about this option. However, since Patty was in a faith-based hospital, any formal discussion and arrangements for Death with Dignity had to be provided by an oncologist not on the hospital staff.
We arranged this with her oncologist who had treated Patty before her hospitalization. He met with Patty and agreed that Patty met the two requisite Death with Dignity guidelines: a terminal illness that will lead to death within six months and that she was capable of making and communicating her healthcare decisions. He also arranged to have Patty interviewed by a second physician, and both sent their Death with Dignity affirmations to the Oregon Health Authority.
A complicated process
Even in Oregon, discussing and arranging Death with Dignity was complicated. I was hesitant about broaching the subject, since Patty had climbed out of each previous metastatic setback. We both knew this was very different since she was now receiving comfort care, not any treatment. This is the goal of hospice, “to manage symptoms and improve the quality of life with someone near the end of life. Hospice guides you and your family through the dying process—physically, emotionally, spiritually”(3). Hospice provided a walker, wheelchair and hospital bed, and I slept next to Patty in our living room. The hospice nurses and social workers visited frequently, adjusting the medications to provide adequate pain management and ease anxiety.
Once we decided on the Death with Dignity option, I wanted it ready to be administered, if that became Patty’s wish. A single compounding pharmacy in the Portland area is licensed to prepare the lethal formulation, and coordinating the paperwork with the pharmacy, physicians and the state authority was not simple. It took a few weeks before the formulated medication arrived. I was still unsure of when and how to bring up the Death with Dignity option with Patty.
Over the next few weeks, Patty became progressively weaker, less alert and slept most of the day. After a difficult day, Patty asked me whether it was time for Death with Dignity. We cried as we held each other, but we each knew that this was the right choice. Patty, always in charge, decided to wait two more days so she could celebrate Thanksgiving, her favorite holiday, with her family.
Thanksgiving was both sorrowful and joyful. The day after Thanksgiving, I mixed the compounded medicine in a glass of apple juice and gave it to Patty. My two daughters and I watched as she drank it down and then settled next to her in bed. While lying together, we each grappled with some common end of life questions, as captured in a recent New England Journal of Medicine editorial (3).
“Is she choking? Am I doing the right thing? Can she hear us?”
I reassured myself and my daughters that her staggered breathing was “normal at the end of life and she wasn’t struggling to breathe. The morphine doesn’t speed up the dying process, but takes away the pain. She wasn’t conscious but I think on a deeper, spiritual level she knew we were there … felt our presence, and was comforted by the sound of your voice” (3).
‘The last frontier’
Physician-assisted death was described in a recent New York Times article as “the last frontier in the expansion of individual autonomy” (2). However, there are bitter debates about who should be eligible. For example, in most countries people with intractable mental illness or dementia are not eligible for physician-assisted death, which remains restricted to people with a terminal illness.
Most U.S. states, often using the guise of religious dogma, have prohibited physician-assisted death, even in patients with terminal illness. It was encouraging last week when New York Gov. Kathy Hochul approved a bill to allow physician-assisted death for terminally ill people.
Hochul, a Catholic, struggled with her decision, noting, “… a lot of religious conflict in me, the way I was raised. But I realized it’s not about me, it’s about 20 million New Yorkers. I do not believe that in every instance condemning someone to excruciating pain and suffering preserves the dignity and sanctity of life” (5).
A colleague in the New York senate applauded Hochul’s decision, noting “It’s not about shortening life. It’s about shortening death” (5). In opposition, the New York State Catholic Conference called the bill “egregious, intrinsically evil” (5).
One popular website titled “Aging With Dignity” claims, “Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia create pressure on those facing serious illness or disability … such practices devalue human life, marginalizing and endangering the poor, disabled, minorities and elderly through assisted suicide” (4).
These statements misrepresent Patty and the thousands of Oregon residents who have chosen Death With Dignity. Like Patty, people who chose Death With Dignity are well-educated, independent, currently in hospice care and die peacefully at home (1,2).
Patty cited that her fear of loss of autonomy as very important in this decision. Rather than “creating pressure,” choosing Death with Dignity alleviated her anxiety and pressure. Patty had put up with a great deal of uncertainty, pain and suffering over the past four years. Patty’s decision when and how to end her life was hers alone, and made with dignity and grace. It should be an option for every person facing death.
1. Oregon Health Authority. Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act Current Report 2024.
2. Nolen S. Should you be able to ask a doctor to help you die? NY Times Dec 9, 2025.
3. What is Hospice? Teva D Brender MD N Engl J Med 2025;393:1872-3.
5. Asford G. N.Y. governor will sign right-to-die bill for the terminally ill. NY Times. Dec 17, 2025
 | A guest post by
|