WASHINGTON — Brittany Maynard, the Oregon newlywed whose decision to choose to end her life Nov. 1, has released a new YouTube video that says she may push back the deadline she set for herself.
Maynard, who moved from California to Oregon because of Oregon’s death with dignity law, has terminal brain cancer and wanted to raise awareness about end of life choices.
“I still feel good enough, and I still have enough joy, and I still laugh and smile with my family and friends enough, that it doesn’t seem like the right time, right now,” says the 29-year-old Maynard, in the 6-minute video, produced by The Brittany Maynard Fund.
Yet, Maynard says whether it’s Nov. 1 or later, she’s plans to take advantage of the state’s Death with Dignity Act, when the time is right.
“It will come, because I feel myself getting sicker — it’s happening each week,” says Maynard.
Walking with her husband Dan and their dogs brings her her greatest feelings of health, even though she can’t help but notice her health is deteriorating.
“I guess that’s what happens when you’re terminally ill — you get sicker and sicker,” she says.
Dan Maynard says taking things one day at a time is getting the couple through the sadness.
Two recent seizures in a day scared Brittany.
“I remember looking at my husband’s face, and thinking ‘I know this is my husband, but I can’t say his name,'” says Maynard.
Maynard says in the past three months she’s gained 25 pounds because of prescription medications.
She says her body feels so different than it did one year ago, before she was diagnosed with stage IV glioblastoma multiforme, and she now dislikes being photographed or looking at herself in the mirror.
“My body has changed so quickly, you really kind of stop recognizing yourself,” says Maynard.
In the video, Maynard says she hopes her mother will recover from losing her only child, and that her husband, “who’s such a lovely man,” will eventually have a family.
“I know that might sound weird, but there’s no part of me that wants him to live out the rest of his life just missing his wife,” says Maynard, wiping her tears with a tissue, “So I hope he moves on and becomes a father.”
See Brittany Maynard’s new video:
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