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Comment by theowaway44 | Hacker News Reader

As I'm getting older (mid 40s), I have a different view now than before. I've seen people die in real life, and it was horrific. Even in hospital beds with morphine drips.

I don't want to die in agony, or slowly suffocating as many do. I'll end it before it goes too far.

I think more people should actually go to hospitals and see how real people die, instead of the comforting movie version where the family is gathered around while the old person slowly falls to sleep. That's unfortunately not that common.

If I get cancer, I'll hang on for a while until there's not much hope left, and then go to a place with assisted suicide.

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As helpful as it can be in some respects to project oneself into a future time and circumstance, humans are often bad a predicting how they would decide on serious matters until they actually find themselves in that situation. This is particularly true in cases where quality of life is at issue.

Usually it's the family that makes decisions at that point in a hospital for a patient, and they often make horrendous, selfish decisions and prolong the patient's enormous suffering before death.

Give people comfort care asap if they have a terminal illness, at the very least.

My mother told me over and over to pull the plug should she ever end up on life support. When I found out she was on life support after a heart attack I immediately assumed that it would be her brother's choice to pull the plug or not. Nope, that horrendous decision belongs to the kids, namely me. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do but I understood and respected her wishes.

I'm a similar age to you, and I've had up close experience of a few deaths too. One of my grandmothers literally went to sleep one evening and never woke up. (She'd been getting weaker over time so had been living with us, with my parents staying in the same room as her so we know she didn't suffer anything). My other grandmother had cancer in her 90s and opted against having chemo. She died peacefully, in hospital, with family around her - pretty close to the "movie version". She didn't need euthanasia, just a medical team who cared enough about her wishes to have a good death not to browbeat her or the family into having treatment she didn't want.

And even in the "comforting" movie version, it's still different in real life where they start gasping for breath. I at least thought the person was in pain or suffering somehow. (I did ask the Dr. that came to give us the death certificate and apparently it's because either the brain has shut down or and the body is still trying to perform it's duty or vice-versa and there's no pain or suffering just a part of passing away).

I mean you need to be a citizen of a country where that is possible, right?

Oh yeah, because someone buying opiates to die a peaceful death would definitely care about purchasing illegal narcotics.

I’m pretty sure it’s possible in every single country in the world, perhaps except North Korea, but I doubt it. It might just be more difficult.

No. Switzerland allows suicide 'tourism'.

That's what the opiates are for.

Opiates only help so much, unless you’re talking about using them to overdose.

Assuredly he is

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