Customer Reviews

Last Wish

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Breast cancer survivor and journalist Betty Rollin, who wrote the classic First ,You Cry, has written another classic here, the story of her mother's failing battle with ovarian cancer and the suicide that Rollin and her husband, Ed, helped her mother, at her mother's insistence, to implement. I don't greatly approve of the suicide alternative nor of stories that, by making it sound so feasible, give encouragement in this direction. Not that I think God does such a great job of carrying people off; who would need suicide if that were the case? The problem is rather that the delicate boundary between personal choice and a choice brought on by social pressure gets breached as soon as a cultural movement toward the suicide option starts taking shape in the public mind. Indeed Rollin's book, whether she likes it or not, adds one more little increment to the assisted suicide ambience, an ambience that every family facing a situation becomes aware of. This being said, Rollin's mother's choice was so clearly her own and Rollin's book is so elegantly and perfectly written, without melodramatics and with just the right leavening of humor, that my impulse is to show it to everyone who might have the faintest reason to be interested! Rollin has an impeccable eye for the emotional, the medical and the legal complexities of the situation. In one episode, while she and her mother work out the plan, a chance remark sets off Rollin's tears: "Please, sweetheart, don't be upset," my mother said. "I'm doing what I want to do. I don't feel the least bit sorry for myself. I'm lucky I can get out of this. The people I feel sorry for are all the people who want to and can't. Please, sweetheart." I wiped my face with the back of my hand. "I know what you're saying, Mother, and I agree with you. But you can't expect me not to be upset. I think it's right what you're doing, but - but I love you. How can I not be upset?" She listened quietly when I said that. With some unsteadiness, I got up and blew my nose and came back and sat down. Then we resumed our plotting.

In another we find the plotter's coming up against the impasse of mother's failing digestive system: "What did you find out?" she asked. "Maybe these," I said, picking up the Dalmane. "How many?" "Probably around fifteen...or more." ...She looked at the bottle again and frowned. "How will I be able to take fifteen pills?" "That's the problem," I said, "But we're gathering other ideas." "What other ideas?" Oh God, I thought, please stop. She sighed and turned her head to the wall. "Maybe you could take me to the roof of this building. I hear it's nice up there." I looked down at my hands. It was getting hard to tell when something was a joke. "Your digestion could improve, Mother. That could happen." She nodded. "So I can't die until I feel better."

Staying on the safe side, legally, meant making mother's suicide seem unassisted, and this involves Betty and Ed in detailed mental shuffling. Who will discharge the night nurse? Will the next day nurse be able to handle finding her patient dead and will she wonder why no night nurse met her at the door? How to keep a certain relative from calling that night? Who can be found to check in the night and make sure mother has not re-awakened in distress? Etc. Rollin learns, as she puts it, "A new respect for the intelligence of criminals." This book could, in all fairness be used to help families decide against assisted suicide as well as for it. In the end, Rollin's mother recovered sufficient digestive powers to keep her death potient down, and it was her continued mental lucidity and canny social skills - it was she who got the doctor to prescribe, it was she who rescheduled the nurses and fobbed off innocent relatives - that were the key to bringing it off. She ate a bite of food 6 hours before the appointed time; took a Compazine 1 hour before; then at the appointed time, 20 tiny 100 mg tabs of Nembutal, chased by 5 Dalmane. All washed down with soda water. There you go, folks.

This is a beautifully written, affectionate portrait of a much-loved mother, by her adoring daughter. Part biography, part memoir, part autobiography, Betty writes with candor about her relationship with her mother and about her mother's battle with ovarian cancer. We should all be so lucky as to have someone who makes sure we get our last wish. Bravo to Betty and Ed.

"Last Wish" is the true story of the author, Betty Rollin's mother, a health concerned and loving woman in her mid seventies. Betty tells the story of her mothers experience after being diagnosed with ovarian cander and her own experience being related to someone with cancer. This book shoes the hardships of cancer, chemotherepy, and assisted suicide on both the cancer patients and their friends and familys. Betty Rollin does a wonderfull job telling her story with great emotion and truth. I recommend this to anyone suffering with cancer, being close to someone with cancer, interested in or researching cancer.

Betty's first book, First You Cry, tells of her own battle with breast cancer. This one tells of her mother's battle with ovarian cancer.

As any daughter would want to do for her mother, this book plays a magnificent, loving tribute to a dying woman. However, I just could not get into the book. Maybe it was because I, too, have cancer (breast cancer,) but this book to me was depressing, long-winded and did not hold my interest. It was a chore to flip each page. The story could have been told in a few chapters. While the events are, without doubt, signicant to the family, they were rather predictable and uneventful to the reader. I respect the author's compassion for her dying mother, but the book did not stand out as a literary work of art.

"Last Wish" is the true story of the author, Betty Rollin's mother, a health concerned and loving woman in her mid seventies. Betty tells the story of her mothers experience with ovarian cancer and her own experience having a mother who is dying. This book shows the hardships of cancer, chemotherepy, and assisted suicide on both the cancer patients and their family and friends. Betty Rollin does a wonderfull job telling her story with great emotion and truth. I recommend this book to anyone close to someone who is a cancer patient, cancer patients, and anyone interested in or researching cancer.

This book lays bare a difficult truth and does so with a journalist's efficiency. What a story. I feel so much for all the people in this book. The fact they actually exist -- existed -- makes me want to salute and praise them. These are the brave soldiers of life itself. Thank you, Betty and Ed Rollin, and you Belva, and you Frieda, and you Dr. Goldman, and all you others who cared and felt so much for wonderful Ida.

Per Keats:

When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

I'm glad the author shared her experience. I found it a beautiful read, a loving tribute to her mother Ida, a lovely woman. The whole process must have been so difficult, very touching.

I bought this book only because I found out my great grandfather (Joseph Brooks) and family are mentioned in it. I was excited to have more information about them. What a nice surprise to find out the book is extremely well written, and had me laughing, and then crying in the same chapters. As my own mother's caretaker during the last three years of her life, I could so relate to what the author went through, and it brought back some pretty powerful emotions. The whole issue of assisted suicide was explored so well, and resulted in some good conversations between family and friends. I TOTALLY recommend this book. In fact, I gave my copy to my aunt, so I'm off to buy it again!