Petaluma veteran shares plans to end life under California doctor-assisted death law

Taking it easy on the couch, about the most this 87-year-old, long-retired retailer and former political rabble-rouser can now do, Oz Grimes was feeling grateful for his life - and at peace with his resolve to end it a few days hence.

Grimes intends on Monday to stir into a glass and drink a lethal prescription of four drugs made available to him by a legally challenged and emotionally debated, young California law.

“I’m tired. I’m very tired,” the 50-year resident of Petaluma said as he reposed with his rescued little dog, Sophia, and his two daughters just feet away. His gentle blue eyes framed sharply by his snowy hair and beard, the widower of progressive writer-activist Beth Grimes told of being drained by worsening heart disease and the impacts of recent falls.

“I’m relegated to a walker for the rest of my life,” he said, adding that he also has come to require round-the-clock assistance.

“I can’t live like that,” he said. “I’ve always done for others.”

He was able to legally obtain the prescriptions because nearly three years ago California became the fifth state - now there are six and the District of Columbia - to allow by statue doctor-assisted suicide for people who are terminally ill, of sound mind and capable of self-administering their final prescription.

Great confusion surrounds the California law, and generally news headlines make it difficult to keep track of which states allow aid in dying, which don’t and which are in the fraught process of deciding.

Last May, California’s law was suspended when a Riverside County judge declared it unconstitutional because of how the Legislature adopted it: during a special session in 2015 dedicated to health care issues.

With that ruling, doctors could no longer write prescriptions for terminally ill patients seeking to fulfill the process for legally ending their lives, and pharmacists could not fill such prescriptions.

About a month later, in June, a state appeals court reinstated the End of Life Option Act. The court ruled that the law can remain in effect while the dispute makes its way through the legal system. The issue could wind up before the state Supreme Court.

Among the arguments of opponents of the California act, beyond that it was passed illegally, are that it imperils the elderly and infirm and other vulnerable people and it stokes a culture of suicide at a time of great advancement in both treatment of serious illness and in hospice care.

Proponents contend that adults who are dying and suffering have a right to a peaceful, humane, self-directed death and that the End of Life Option Act guards against patients moving to cut short their misery in haste, under pressure or in the absence of objective counsel.

What’s commonly called physician-assisted suicide was off Oz Grimes’ personal radar when, earlier this year, the veteran peace-and-justice activist and retired manager of Sausalito’s former Interbay Lumber Co. concluded that he was done.

His congestive heart failure and cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle, and other ailments and limitations had eroded his quality of life. So he stopped eating.

“I got to the eighth day and I was totally miserable,” Grimes said. “I thought, ‘I’ve got to find a better way.’? ”

Aware of his anguish, a hospice worker who helps with his care asked if he knew about California’s aid-with-dying law. Grimes researched it, and about a month ago applied to the state Department of Public Health to begin the process of approval to receive the prescriptions that would end his life on a day and under circumstances of his choosing.

Under the law’s requirements, a patient must make two verbal requests for end-of-life assistance from his or her attending physician, at least 15 days apart. For the process to continue, that doctor must certify that the patient’s illness or illnesses would likely prove fatal within no more than six months, and that the patient has the capacity to make an independent decision and to administer the lethal drugs without assistance.

If the doctor makes those determinations, the patient must see a second doctor, who must confirm the person’s diagnosis, prognosis and ability to make and carry out a life-ending decision.

California public health officials report that, from the day in June 2016 the End of Life Option Act took effect through the end of 2017, 474 patients are known to have legally obtained the lethal prescriptions, ingested them and died.

The state does not report the county of residence of people who make use of the law, so it’s not disclosed how many terminal patients in Sonoma and neighboring counties ended their lives during the first 18 months of the law.

The annual reports do reflect that, in addition to the 474 people who completed the qualification process and then obtained and ingested the prescriptions, another 292 received the drugs and then changed their minds about taking them or died instead from their illnesses, or their outcomes are not known.

The state’s report for 2018 hasn’t yet been completed and released.

Though California’s law probably hasn’t been in force long enough for trends to emerge, observations can be drawn from 21 years of reports on usage of Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act of 1997.

Through the first four years of the Oregon law, fewer than 30 terminally ill people per year made use of it to legally end their lives. The numbers have generally increased, though many years fewer Oregonians chose to ingest lethal prescriptions than the year before.

For the past six years, the number of physician-assisted deaths reported in Oregon has increased each year: 73 in 2013, 105 in ’14, 135 in ’15, 139 in ’16, 158 in ’17 and 168 in ’18.

Oregon officials estimate that the 168 deaths last year reflect a rate of 45.9 per each 10,000 of the state’s total deaths. California’s reported 363 doctor-assisted deaths in 2017 account for a rate of 13.5 per 10,000 deaths.

As he prepares for his intentional and self-?administered death on Monday, Oz Grimes shares time and reflections with his daughters, Karen Grimes Schuler and Kathy Diefenbach, both of the South Bay. Their older brother, Randy Grimes, lives in Pleasanton.

The trio’s father also has been scrolling back through a good life.

“Just look at how I was able to bring these kids up,” Oz Grimes said, glancing about the comfortable and airy home in east Petaluma that he and Beth bought in 1969.

“And I had a decent job. I’m happy,” he said.

Chief among the sources of his joys was his more than 65 years of friendship and marriage with Beth. They worked together at the lumber store in Sausalito and got arrested together at protests, sit-ins and blockades that targeted the Vietnam war, secret dealings within the elite Bohemian Grove encampment near Monte Rio, America’s militarism and arms sales and support of right-wing regimes in Nicaragua and elsewhere, and other liberal to revolutionary causes.

“We did everything together,” Oz Grimes said. As a couple, he added, he and Beth “we were the best. We were like one in a million.”

Oz Grimes’ wife suffered a traumatic brain injury in a fall in 2008. The couples’ daughters said that for the following three years, their father dedicated his life to caring for their mother.

Grimes didn’t dispute it when the sisters said that over time, the death of their mother at age 85 in September 2011 has not gotten any easier for their dad, but it’s gotten harder.

Schuler and Diefenbach dread the loss of their father but both tell of honoring his choice to put an end to his debilitation and deterioration and reliance on others.

“We’re glad we don’t have to see him starve to death,” Schuler said.

Her father said he couldn’t have better daughters. “It’s amazing what they’ve done for me,” he said.

Thinking back over his long life, Grimes observed that every year since 1952 has been a bonus.

“I almost died in Korea, so I have no misgivings,” said the long-ago combat Marine.

The grandfather of 8 and great-grandfather of 3 is scheduled to have a pharmacist deliver the drugs on Friday, and instruct him on preparing and ingesting them. Grimes is aware that he can send the pharmaceuticals back; he said he’s being reminded regularly that he is free to change his mind.

So far, he’s resolute. He plans to see and say goodbyes to family members and friends on Saturday.

“I’d like to have a day to contemplate on Sunday,” he said.

Come Monday, he’s been feeling certain, he’ll stir up the drugs, perhaps in apple juice, down them and then close his eyes. He anticipates that he’ll descend quickly into a deep sleep and be unaware when, between a few minutes and a few hours later, his heart and brain cease.

He admits to wondering if there are those who will criticize his final act.

“I hope people don’t take this the wrong way - that it’s suicide and what right do I have to do that,” he said from the couch, his peace-symbol tattooed right forearm resting alongside the contentedly sleeping Sophia. The dog will go next week to live with daughter Schuler.

“I’m doing this because I can’t go on anymore,” Grimes said. “I’ve had it.”

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.