John Radcliffe does not seem like a man who is dying.
He is 74 years old, has stage 4 liver and colon cancer and, at the moment, looks fantastic.
“It goes up and down,” he says. Since his diagnosis in June 2014, he’s been in the emergency room
15 times, had three extended hospital stays, lost all his hair and dropped down to 130 pounds at one point. “I looked like Gollum in that ‘Rings’ movie,” he says.
But right now, though his condition is terminal, he looks hale, is bright-eyed and quick-witted, and has taken on a grand mission. He wants Hawaii to join six other states in legalizing medical aid in dying — not assisted suicide, not euthanasia, but allowing terminally ill, mentally capable people the option of self-administering prescribed medication that will bring about a peaceful death if their suffering becomes unbearable.
“This isn’t for everybody,” Radcliffe emphasizes. For all he knows, it may not be for him. “But it’s better to have that option of doing this with your family around you, knowing that you are loved and not in pain.”
Radcliffe, a well-known lobbyist and union leader in Hawaii, started feeling tired toward the end of the 2012-13 legislative session. “I had a hard time dragging myself up and down the back stairs at the Capitol,” he says. By the time he was diagnosed, the cancer was already stage 4 and inoperable. Chemotherapy is just to slow down the progression and buy him more quality time. For him, quality is key.
“Our culture and our medical system is set up to save lives at virtually all costs. I don’t want to do that,” he says. “If the pain gets so bad, the suffering gets so bad … people have no goddamn right to tell me that I can’t make that choice for myself.”
Radcliffe knows suffering. He had polio as a child and had to learn to walk again after being crippled by the disease.
When he was 5, his mother was diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent to a sanitarium, where she stayed until she died eight years later. Radcliffe never saw his mother all those years
except to wave to her from the parking lot as she stood by her window. His daughter’s husband died of cancer, and it was slow and painful and agonizing for the whole
family.
“Nothing about cancer is fun, though it does give you focus,” Radcliffe says. His focus now is bringing about this legislation, not so much for himself, but for others in Hawaii facing agonizing, painful deaths. “As long as you can be useful in life, you should be useful,” he says.
As he sat in his Wilder Avenue apartment talking about life and death and telling war stories from decades of mixing it up with some of Hawaii’s most colorful politicians and big shots, I asked how his family feels about all this. He and wife Diane have been married for 55 years and have one daughter.
Any grandkids? I ask. Radcliffe smiles the wide grin of
a great tale about to be told, and shows a picture on his iPad.
“I’ll tell you this story,” he says.
It was like something out of a Lifetime movie. Just after his diagnosis, Radcliffe, sick and weak and pretty depressed, got a letter out of the blue from a man who said, “I think I may be your son.” The two exchanged information and, sure enough, Radcliffe had a child he didn’t know existed, a man in his 60s, fathered when Radcliffe was 13. Just like that, Radcliffe learned he has two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. In the picture on his iPad, his son, grandsons and great-grandkids all bear a clear resemblance to Radcliffe.
So yes, his family is in complete agreement with his wishes. The thing is, Radcliffe isn’t saying this is what he will do — or what he thinks others in his situation should do. What he’s arguing for is having the option.
“When the legislative session starts, I’ll be on the floor of the Senate doing my chemo,” Radcliffe says. He has another three-day round of chemo in which he attaches a tube from an IV bag into a line implanted in his chest. He will bring his chemo with him when he talks to legislators about allowing medical aid in dying. He is no longer a paid lobbyist, but he’ll be advocating for this as something of, as he puts it, a “poster child.”
“What I’m going to do is tell them where I am,” Radcliffe says. “And explain that this is an option that ought to be available for those for whom it is appropriate.”
As for philosophical or religious arguments, Radcliffe is ready to have that big discussion.
“I don’t think God wants me to be in any amount of pain in the end, and if he does, I want to talk to him about it.”
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
