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Dying candidate’s fight for control

Sep 02, 2013

The back of Max Bromson’s hands are covered in large splotches of darkness that seem to reside just under the first layer of his skin.

Still, when we meet, he gives me a surprisingly firm handshake – the handshake of someone trying to press on you that there’s plenty of strength and life remaining.

Bromson is very sick. He’s running for a South Australian Senate seat because he wants to regain some control in a life that seems to have drawn the short straw.

He wants the right to be euthanised.

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On a CT image, the tumours run down Bromson’s spine like fat black tentacles. His mid-spine, right in the centre of his ribcage, is enveloped completely. Carcinoid cancer – bone cancer that has stunted the ability of his skeleton to regenerate itself. His spine is slowly crumbling.

“The doctors talk about pain levels from one to 10,” Bromson tells me.

“My background pain, today’s not a bad day – it’s about a five.

“When the pain goes off, it’s about 19 out of 10.”

He makes a fizzing sound with his lips, like a rocket taking off. “It’s vile.”

Max Bromson

Bromson is running for the Voluntary Euthanasia Party, which will field Senate candidates in New South Wales, the ACT (where long-time euthanasia advocate Doctor Philip Nitschke will stand) and SA, plus a Lower House candidate in the Northern Territory.

Euthanasia was briefly legal in Australia, after Northern Territory legislators approved a physician-assisted-suicide model in 1995. But soon after  it was voided by federal Legislation.

VEP are calling for that model to be brought back, and rolled out nationally.

“You should have the right to say, ‘look, I can’t do this anymore, I wish to be relieved of all this pain and suffering’,” Bromson says.

At 66, he represents the start of a looming demographic crunch – he’s one of the first baby-boomers to retire. As that large generation ages and grows frailer, and their quality of life degrades, the question of euthanasia is one Australia will likely be called on to revisit.

“for some unknown reason he drew the short straw”

Euthanasia is about that one thing, Bromson says – quality of life. His has degraded to the point where he says it’s a constant line-ball call on choosing to continue to live.

Because of the cancer in his spine he can no longer sleep lying down. Instead he sleeps sitting up in a chair with a blanket covering his legs.

“That’s one of the issues when you go to hospital, is to find a chair that you can sleep in, because you can’t sleep in their beds.

“To have a CT scan … that’s a joke, because you’ve got to lay flat. So there’s lots of yelling and screaming at each other while we go through that.”

Bromson is being treated at the oncology department at Calvary Hospital in North Adelaide. Because of the strength of his treatment – radiotherapy and bone-supplement drugs, plus strong painkillers – he’s not able to drive himself, so he’s being ferried about by his cousin, Marilyn Rault.

For most of InDaily’s interview with Bromson, the strong-featured Rault watches us quietly, face expressionless.

But as Bromson talks about the quality of his life, she interrupts, her voice thick with emotion.

“When Max says he sleeps in a chair … he has to be in a chair that is solid and high backed.

“Most people would not be able to sleep like that, night after night, let alone through the day. But he sleeps in that and in winter he has one of those heated blankets over him. That’s only one example of losing a percentage of quality of life.

“I’ve watched him go from a very healthy, community-minded man, worked hard all of his life, and for some unknown reason he drew the short straw, and there’s no common sense as to why. But the sad thing is there are so many people in their own situation

“I’m only speaking for myself. It saddens me that I cannot be with him at his time of death. That may come across as selfish, but I don’t want this man at 66 to die alone. And no human being should have to die alone.”

Max Bromson

Bromson tells me he’s made his peace with death. He’s ready. But he wants to do it in a way of his choosing – and he wants his final moments to be filled with love, not fear.

“The actual act, the end, I can handle that … I’m from the country – I’ve shot rabbits and pigs and things over the years. The means are there to be able to commit suicide; I understand in my mind what’s needed and I can do it. I can cope with that decision, I’ve made the decision, I know the path I will go down.”

Because suicide is illegal, Bromson expects he’s going to have to end his life alone, and sooner than he would like to.

“Because you’re doing it alone, to commit suicide, you have to do it sooner because there’s only going to be you, and you can’t muck it up or you’re in deep trouble. If it’s legal you can leave it to the point where you might be able to have another six months of life.”

“So you’re not in control of anything at all. That’s not living, it’s existing.”

If quality of life, escape from pain, is one side of euthanasia, then the other side is control. In the prime of your life your sense of control over your body is near-absolute. With age, that control slowly ebbs away until finally falling beyond your grasp.

“I put up with more pain than probably a lot of people because …” Bromson pauses, starts again.

“I can lower the pain thresholds if I choose to. I can take more medication and that’ll lesson the pain, but then I lose – I’ll sleep, I’ll become quite drowsy, you certainly couldn’t drive a motorcar, and there’s little quality of life. You’re just sitting around sleeping.

“It’s my choice that at this stage I keep my base levels of medication a little bit lower and I’m able to interact, like we are now, and hold conversations. Last night was a mate’s 50th birthday dinner – you can still enjoy some of those things.

But now, the pain isn’t something he can always control.

“In those circumstances it will go off the planet to the point where, and I’ve had to do it sometimes, you then go to hospital and they just medicate you up. They just keep going with the medication till they’ve got the pain level right. Then you’ll sleep for a day and a half, two days.

“So you’re not in control of anything at all. That’s not living, it’s existing.”

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