She can still see those final days as if they were playing out before her all over again, the way Kathy looked up and begged her for help to die.
Kathy was 58 and by the end, she looked 20 years older, her best friend, Sally Odenheimer, 57, recalled. The day doctors told Kathy there was no hope, only days, maybe two weeks left, she had demanded they remove her feeding tube.
Yet death took its time.
Her intestines, ravaged by the spreading ovarian cancer, had shut down. So the woman pleaded numerous times with hospice nurses for a shot of anything that would kill her.
Odenheimer could only hold her friend’s hand. Kathy, she said, died Oct. 1. She had finally starved to death.
“I was so angry. I am still angry,” Odenheimer said. “I still have the visual of her dying, and firmly believe it did not have to come to that.”
She is on a mission now, to rally support in Colorado for end-of-life-rights legislation that would allow others to escape the miserable end her friend suffered.
“I don’t like the terms euthanasia or assisted suicide. It is end-of-life rights,” she said. “No one should have to suffer like that. We induce labor all the time, but we cannot induce death?”
She and Kathy were inseparable through high school in Indiana. When Kathy went to Ball State University, Odenheimer followed a year later and roomed with her.
They both ended up in metro Denver and would speak at least once a month. Last winter, they traveled together for a college reunion. It was like they were never separated.
It was at a Rockies game in July that Odenheimer realized something was wrong with Kathy. She says now the woman looked like she was six months pregnant. It is just age, Kathy told her.
Weeks later, Kathy got worse. Doctors performed a hysterectomy. Kathy did not get better. When they opened her up for a second surgery, they saw the cancer had run rampant.
“She could legally remove her feeding tube, but she could not ask for a lethal injection,” Odenheimer said. Kathy had pleaded with the nurses for one.
“In this country, we treat our animals better. I would never starve my dog to death if he was sick,” she said. “But with a dog, we give them a lethal injection to prevent suffering.”
Odenheimer says she knows Kathy would want her on this mission. She has contacted groups online willing to work with her to reach politicians who may be sympathetic. And then, she called me.
“I want to get this issue out there, particularly as our population continues to age, because this is going to come up more and more,” she said.
“I don’t want another human being to die the way Kathy did. Maybe I can get like-minded together and get something going.”
People in Kathy’s position should have the right to say how they wish to die, Odenheimer said.
“The only thing she could legally do, with all of us standing around her, is remove the feeding tube. She knew it was the end. And to get there, she had to starve herself to death.
“That is inhuman. Yet no one wants to talk about it, like it’s taboo. I think we can all agree it is not how we would want to die.
“I know I do not. But what I have learned is, clearly, I don’t get to make that choice.”
Bill Johnson writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-2763 or wjohnson@denverpost.com.
