With Days Left To Live SF Woman Battling Brain Cancer Fulfills Dream Of Visiting Grand Canyon With Family
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) - Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman battling stage 4 brain cancer, says she crossed something off her self-described bucket last week, just days before she plans to take her own life.
Earlier this month, Maynard released a YouTube video on her decision to move from her home state of California in order to access death with dignity laws in Oregon. The nonprofit Compassion & Choices is helping her chronicle her choice to die this weekend through a campaign to expand assisted suicide laws around the nation.
The newlywed, who was living in San Francisco at the time, learned she had terminal brain cancer last January after months of suffering from debilitating headaches. In April, UC San Francisco told her she had six months to live.
In a blog posts about her visit Maynard said the Grand Canyon gave her a needed distraction from her battle with cancer.
"The Canyon was breathtakingly beautiful, and I was able to enjoy my time with the two things I love most: my family and nature," she wrote on The Brittany Maynard Fund website. "Sadly, it is impossible to forget my cancer. Severe headaches and neck pain are never far away, and unfortunately the next morning I had my worst seizure thus far."
Maynard has glioblastoma multiforme, the most aggressive and lethal form of brain cancer.
With few options in California, Maynard and her family moved to Portland where she met the criteria for Oregon's Death with Dignity Act. Since the law went into effect in 1997, 1,173 people have had prescriptions written under the act, and 752 have used them to die.
Maynard has said she plans to die two days after her husband's birthday on Nov. 1 by assisted suicide.