By Dan Johnson and From The Futurist — 1998
Rick Fields, poet, writer, and editor-in-chief of Yoga Journal, was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer in 1995 at the age of 53.
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CLEAR ALL
With each diagnosis, knowing her life hung in the balance, she was “stunned, then anguished” and astonished by “how much energy it takes to get from the bad news to actually starting on the return path to health.”
Studies of dying patients who seek a hastened death have shown that their reasons often go beyond physical ones like intractable pain or emotional ones like feeling hopeless.
My Feb. 5 column, “A Heartfelt Appeal for a Graceful Exit,” prompted a deluge of information and requests for information on how people too sick to reap meaningful pleasure from life might be able to control their death.
Though I wince at the redundancy, funeral “pre-planning” is a phenomenon receiving increased attention, and a growing number of Web-based guides tell how to go about it. As www.funerals.org puts it: “Funeral planning starts at home.