My sister died at the age of 34 from metastatic breast cancer. She suffered horribly the last entire year of her life.

Her last month was spent in the hospital and she didn't receive decent pain relief until very near the end. They were STILL giving her injections of dilaudid. I raised a huge ruckus when it got to the point that the nurses couldn't give her her pain injections on the 4th hour because her veins just weren't accessible. I watched her suffer when that 4th hour came around because she depserately needed morphine. They would give up and have to have the EMTs come to her room to give her the injections.

Anyway, I'll never forget the day when her '4th hour' passed and she had tears from the pain. I was literally screaming at the nursing staff. That afternoon they set her up FINALLY with a morphine drip IV.

Not many days after she spoke to her doctor and asked if he could please give her something to put her 'under' because she knew she would die in a few days, she felt it. And he did. She didn't tell us, but did say goodbye to her best friend. She told her she couldn't say goodbye to us.

At any rate, she suffered unmercifully. I think that hospice must have been a little known thing at the time or we would have moved her.

She had to be put in a special bed filled, I believe, with sand and constant air movement because she couldn't get out of bed anymore and her bedsores were terrible. The tumors in her spine were huge and the cancer had spread to the rest of her bones, her brain, lungs, everything. Just touching her hurt her.

Dignity is one thing. But I can't stand to see people suffer. I'm sick to death of people with relentless pain and suffering not getting the relief they need. Thank god for hospices for people who are dying. At least they are treated with what they need.

By the way, my sister did not die peacefully. Even under the influence of whatever they had knocked her out with, she gasped for breath and shot straight up in bed and looked at my dad, her eyes huge with fear. He gently laid her down and lay with her talking to her while she died, praying as they escorted my hysterical mother out of the room.

People have been killing themselves for years for one reason or another. I feel that it's their choice, not mine. And I don't believe that taking your own life is a sin.

Sorry for the lengthy jabber, but I'm a firm believer in controlling people's pain even if that means narcotics. We have the means to control pain and suffering. We have the means to help people die when they are suffering. What we don't entirely have is a society that condones relief by whatever it takes, and again, I'm sick to death of that.

My mother and father say that if you kill yourself you'll go to hell. It's a 'sin'. Well, if you do a LOT of stuff, you'll go to 'hell'. (Which reminds me they've also said gay people will go to hell if they don't ask for 'forgiveness' and I asked about my cousin who is gay, will he go to hell? My mother hesitated, very much liking my cousin, and after a long silence said, "Yes he will if he doesn't accept God and ask for forgiveness.") Well, I want no part of a religion with those kinds of beliefs.

If I'm suffering and I wanna go, drug me up and let me go!