The End in
Two Acts
When David was released from the hospital the next day, Dr. Gideonse visited him at Allison’s home, the first of four house calls he was to make during the next two weeks. They talked it all through. David understood what medication he would take, how he would take it and what exactly would happen. All the necessary paperwork was filed. In a week, David would get his prescription for liquid Nembutal.
It was Dec. 5, 2006, exactly one month from what Tom McDonald thought of as his personal D-Day. He had taken his doctor’s “you have one year to live” prognosis — delivered 11 months before — literally. He had, he thought, one month left. But with the clock ticking, he still had no plans in place to control his own death. Because of his involvement in the fight for the aid-in-dying legislation the summer before, Tom had become more knowledgeable. From his home overlooking Lake Oroville, Tom was now in e-mail correspondence with a counselor at the national Compassion & Choices organization, a nurse named Helen Beum who had specialized in working with AIDS and cancer patients before joining the organization eight years before. Helen worked out of the organization’s headquarters, a pretty, vintage building in residential northwest Portland. She was one of five national counselors — the organization also had 130 volunteers in 26 states — who fielded questions from people all over the country. The office got more than 250 calls a month and actively worked with about 200 clients at a time.