I spent most of yesterday in emergency at the Nanaimo hospital, trying to figure out why I had a pain in my chest and couldn’t breath. I had an ECG, an ultrasound, some blood work, an x ray, and a CAT scan. The pain was intense. All of these tests found no explanation for the pain. They gave me a hydromorphone tablet at the hospital, and I had another triple dose when I got home. It hurt to turn my head, or hold my head up as I lay down. I really thought this was the beginning of the end, and I renewed my efforts to get registered form MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) so there would be a very short delay before the doctors would put this body in park and turn off the ignition. Several people saw my Facebook post and got in touch to express their concern, and to them I explained that I’m dying and this is just the beginning of the end. Then, this morning, I woke up feeling much better, almost pain free. Go figure. It seems the grim reaper has backed off a bit. Whew.

All of this gave Ruth and me a bit of a heads up to plan my exit. I would like to have a time to say goodbye to everybody when it’s time to pull the plug- in effect to attend my own celebration of life. So the latest fantasy is that we will rent a huge monitor and set it up with Zoom so that people all over the world can attend my exit party. Maybe we could set up an agenda for people to say a few words, address old complaints, perform a musical number. At the appointed time, Dr. F_____ will arrive, hopefully dressed as The Grim Reaper. The medical team requires a few minutes with nobody else in attendance while they get me to indicate that I want to die, after which the camera can be turned on again and Ruth and any other visitors can come back into the room, subject to Covid19 restrictions, and everybody can watch me shuffle off this mortal coil.

Sounds like a plan and a party. Any thought or suggestions on this would be very welcome, but please don’t comment if you don’t support Medical Assistance in Dying. Feel free to tell me I’m making a big fuss and must be some kind of attention seeking freak, ’cause I’m fine with that and this will be my very last chance. I have no intention of making a French exit. Love you all.