Comparisons

Wow, so it's been a while... and I mean a LONG while since I have even touched this thing. I haven't changed much since the last time--I am still quite the opinionated person and unafraid to voice said opinions. However; I have become a little bit more delicate in how I say things when voicing my opinions to others.

So, to all my TWO followers (lol), what brings me here tonight, you may ask? Well, if you live under a rock, you probably haven't heard of Brittany Maynard, but if you don't, you know her as the woman who shared her story with the world--the story about a beautiful young woman who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and how she decided to handle it. This girl has been on my mind a lot over the last couple weeks. Not because I am constantly thinking about it, but because everyone is constantly sharing their opinions about this story, and it's been really hard for me to voice my opinions without going on long-winded rants on Facebook that no one wants to read.

So, here I am. Back here where I can write as freely and as lengthy as I want. Anyway, so, the whole story behind Brittany is that six months ago, she was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. Her doctor told her she had approximately six months to live before the cancer would consume her life. I have read a few articles on the details of this story, but in short--she decided against treatment. Her doctor gently explained (as gently as anyone can explain) how the brain tumor was going to eventually kill her. He explained how her quality of life would deteriorate while the brain tumor became more intense. At some point, Brittany decided she did not want cancer to determine what the end of her life was going to look like, so she and her family moved out to Oregon so they could exercise the state's Death With Dignity law--where a person with a terminal illness can choose to end their life by their own means so they do not have to endure the pain and suffering they would inevitably experience. And on November 1st, 2014, Brittany exercised that right.

Now, I have quite a few thoughts of my own regarding this situation. 1. I don't think I could make this decision myself. I would be too concerned that I would be ending my life too soon, and that I still had a lot of good days left, and I wouldn't want those to be wasted. How would I know when enough is enough? 2. If I were to make such a decision, who would support me? Of course, Brittany received a lot of positive support from hundreds of thousands of strangers over social media, but would MY family support me? 3. Would I be OK if a family member was making this decision for themselves? Would I want them to choose to their own way out of this world, or would I be selfish and want them to stay as long as they could? ............ but now that I am trying to think of all these thoughts, they are escaping me, but those are three big ones for sure. Moving on...

I try to stay away from religious debates because I get SO frustrated with things. I am going to say it right now--I don't know what I believe. I don't know what's true, what false, and what has some factual basis and the potential to be true, but we just might never know. My point is, I don't know if there is a greater being. I don't know if there is such thing as life after death, or heaven, or hell, or anything. And I am OK with that. I don't need to know everything right now, and I don't feel the need to commit to saying I believe in something just to satisfy everything else. If people feel the need to persuade me to believe what they believe, that is their own problem. With that being said, there were a LOT of ANGRY religious people voicing their opinions about this in the last month and a half. Death with Dignity=Suicide. Suicide=Hell. Brittany=Horrible person. I could go on. My main problem with this is... Is she a Christian? What if she isn't a Christian? Or what if she isn't even a religious person all? Some people feel the need to shove their beliefs down other people's throats and condemn anyone who does not share their beliefs. Here is what my mantra for this situation is:
1. Don't assume you know her faith
2. Don't pass judgment on her because of your faith
3. Don't tell them she is going to hell for what she is going to do
4. If she is Christian, Christians of all people should know that whatever she has done in her life is between her and God, and "let he who is without sin cast the first stone"
5. Let her live (and die) her own life. Her life is not yours to live

And here is where the title of this blog comes into play... Making comparisons about things can be helpful, or it can be dangerous.

One way making comparisons can be dangerous is making the comparison between Brittany's life with cancer and others's lives with cancer. I saw the title for a blog or article stating that someone with the same cancer diagnosis as Brittany's was told they had six months to live, but went on to live for another 13 years. I didn't even bother reading it because I knew I would just be rolling my eyes the entire time. This is not a comparison that can be made lightly. Yes, some people live for YEARS after being diagnosed with a terminal illness. But you have to remember, some people who are diagnosed with a terminal illness and are given six months to live die the next week. Everyone is different. Everyone's bodies react differently to everything. Going through chemo and radiation could kill someone faster than someone else with the same diagnosis going through the same thing. You can only make a comparison of the cancer itself--not the people living with it.


Here is where making comparisons could be helpful and dangerous. I just read another blog post earlier this evening that was comparing Brittany's decision to end her life to those who chose to jump out of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11. While I generally don't like to compare 9/11 to anything, whoever this person was made some decent points. How are Brittany and the 9/11 "Jumpers" related? They all saw they had less-than-favorable options, and no matter what, all their options would eventually lead to death. BUT they all determined that one of these options was more favorable than any other--they were going to decide how they were going to die. For those in the World Trade Center towers, they had three options: suffocate on the smoke caused by the fires that were burning in the towers, be burned alive (if they didn't suffocate first), or jump 80+ stories and die anyway. I am sure they were afraid to die. there are a lot of people who are afraid to die and that is OK. For the people on 9/11, they had to have been afraid, but they knew they were going to die. I don't think they were afraid to wait and find out HOW they were going to die, whether it be suffocating or burning to death. I think they just wanted to die on their own terms. The NY coroner ruled all of these deaths as homicide caused by blunt force trauma. Not one was ruled as suicide. But why? They jumped to their deaths.

Was it because their deaths were immanent and were caused by such a tragedy that it's not fair to them? Of course it's not fair. I think this blogger's comparison was meant to be made lightly. Of course we ALL know nothing can be compared to the events that happened on 9/11, but let's not make light of terminal illnesses either. Brittany was told she was going to die, and in the same way the people on 9/11 decided, she decided she was not going to let her circumstances determine how she was going to die. She wanted to do it on her own terms and under her own control. Could she have gone through treatments and survived? I guess we will never know. His main point was... why are we treating people who are facing death differently from one another? Is it because cancer isn't tragic enough? This is why it's hard to make these comparisons, but I believe he is TRYING to make a valid point.

I feel like I have so much more to say, but I feel like I will probably just continue repeating myself until my fingers fall off. And I honestly wish I could come up with a better conclusion to this post, but I am tired and I guess I really just want to go to bed :)