Cancer patient loses her fight

Oregon woman chose chemotherapy and palliative care over assisted suicide.

By Andis Robeznieks, AMNews staff. March 3, 2003.

In early January, Mary Morrison, 57, stopped chemotherapy after CT scans showed enlargement of tumors in her brain and lungs as well as metastasis in her liver and bones. On Feb. 1, she died in her son's Oregon house, where she had been living since her disease forced her to give up her home in California.

Morrison's story first appeared in the Aug. 12, 2002, issue of American Medical News in an article about how the differing philosophies of two Oregon doctors on opposite sides of the state's physician-assisted suicide law was affecting their treatment of their terminally ill patients.

Ken Stevens, MD, vice president of Physicians for Compassionate Care, an anti-assisted suicide group, was Morrison's physician. He attended the same church as Morrison's son and was at Morrison's bedside when she died. He described her as a friend as well as a patient.

"She was doing well until early January, and then became fairly weaker," Dr. Stevens said. "I think she was getting tired of chemotherapy and expressed some relief that she didn't have to take chemotherapy any more."

After discontinuing chemotherapy, Morrison entered a palliative care program and received frequent visits from a hospice nurse, Dr. Stevens said.