[It's Me!]

Due to a number of circumstances that have occurred over the past few years, I've been forced to think about death and dying a lot lately. Watching my father struggle without my mother (who passed a little over a year ago), and my MiL do nothing but eat, sleep, and watch tv has led me to realize that I really don't want to be a burden on my kids once the productive aspects of my life are past. Obviously, I would love to be there for my boys, and their families (if they choose to have them), for as long as I can be. However, once my health starts to decline, I do not want to be a burden on them.

I helped take care of my grandfather as he was dying from cancer. Fortunately I was able to take time off of grad school to spend a couple of months with him before he passed, and I was thankful for it, but it's not pleasant having my last memories of that strong man being helping him go to the bathroom when he could still move, or moving him on his hospital bed while the nurse changed his diaper when it was finally time to call hospice in. And this week helping my dad get dressed after an out-patient surgical procedure, and seeing how slow he's started to move as he gets close to his 80s.

Do I think my kids would help me if I needed it? They're young right now, and as long as I don't do anything to ruin my relationship with them, I think they would but I don't want to do that to them. In essence, I want to make the hard decisions and get a plan into place so when the time comes I can spare them from having to make those decisions for me, or carrying memories that can't be erased.

Will they disagree? Maybe. Will they feel that I cheated them out of some time together? Maybe. But I know that life moves on, and they have lives to live and that I lived mine until I didn't want to any longer.

So I've been looking into euthanasia tourism in Europe. I've been to Europe a few times now, and it's always been a beautiful place to visit. I know a few countries -currently- allow such. Whether it'd still be allowed when the time for me to make such a decision is the question. Hopefully I'm a good twenty/thirty years away from such a decision, but I also know that - at my age - it only takes one bad disease or horrible accident to set you down a path of continued struggle for the remainder of your life.

Growing old sucks.

Sorry if this isn't in the proper forum.