Very early in the development of our podcast, it became evident that Gord & I shared the same two goals for every episode: 1) To make you think; 2) To make you laugh. Throughout our four years of creating content for your entertainment, we managed to maintain and achieve those two goals pretty consistently.
That is the primary reason that, in over four hundred recorded episodes totaling nearly seven thousand hours of discussion, we rarely allowed the conversation to get overly emotional. We purposefully steered away from tear-jerker subjects (and trust me, both of us had plenty to choose from had we wanted to) and tried to stick to what we always did best.
However, when an opportunity presented itself this month to speak to somebody about one of the most gut-wrenching topics conceivable, two thoughts immediately crossed my mind: The first was that there was no way in hell I was going to allow this interview to slip through my fingers - the topic is one of the most fascinating, one of the most tragic and one of the most divisive subjects we will ever consider as a society; Also, the guest being interviewed is my mother – and the second thought was there is no way I can conduct this interview without Gord.
As I mentioned, the Guest for this special podcast is Patricia Cameron, a seventy-one year old woman who has been suffering from an aggressive and painful lung cancer for several years. Radiation and chemotherapy were not only completely ineffective, they also ravaged the healthy parts of her body to a degree from which a completely healthy person could never hope to full recover. Devastated physically and emotionally and left facing a serious battle for each and every short breath she can achieve was just to much for her to take. She made a request to her doctors and in short order her request was granted. She was given the approval to have a doctor end her life for her at a date of her choosing.
Patricia chose October 22, 2023 to be the date of her death. It is on her Seventy-second birthday.
This special Episode is a very rare opportunity to listen to an extremely intelligent and insightful woman share the thoughts and ideas going through the mind of a person who knows exactly when and how they will die. It is an opportunity to hear, in her own words, a bit about the remarkable life of an extraordinary woman who never once allowed anyone or anything to stand in the way of her living by her own morals and her values, her way. . A woman who, ultimately refuses to have her life taken from her. Instead she summoned the Grim Reaper and said “Don’t bother coming for me, I’ll get there when I damn well feel like it!”