Life Support or Life Sentence: Ruminations on End Stage Kidney Disease and my decision for Supportive Care

By Harry Haxton

About the Author:

Harry Haxton lived in Teneriffe, Brisbane, Queensland Australia. He was 69 years old and lived alone at the time of publication. He finished writing this book in mid-June 2016. His chosen date to have passed by was before September 2016.

Harry wrote this extraordinary book after being asked to write a paper about his experiences as a dialysis patient. The book was launched at Harry’s wake, as filmed by the ABC Compass program.

About this book

This is my story. It applies to me. It is about how I went through what will be the end of my life.

It will be my decision and mine only to come off Dialysis and let nature takes its course.

Some of the contents are very confronting, as they should be. My renal doctors, nursing and allied health staff have not failed me, they are doing their job and sincerely want to make my life better despite the limited medical options I have as a person suffering from end stage kidney disease.

My decision is not about them, but about the system and the culture we have in this modern society to not talk about – DYING and DEATH.

“I’m here for a GOOD TIME, not a LONG TIME.”

List of chapters

 

Chapter 1 – The Lead Up

Chapter 2 – The Options

Chapter 3 – My Person Options

Chapter 4 – The Honeymoon

Chapter 5 – The issues

Chapter 6 – Eureka moment

Chapter 7 – What happens when you turn the machine off?

Chapter 8 – My final thoughts about my decision

Chapter 9 – The Plan

Chapter 10 – Some Hints

Chapter 11 – My Story – Your Action

Buy a copy of the book

Harry knew how challenging it is to raise funds for kidney disease research, and his generous offer to bequeath full rights of his book (including the animator’s rights to all illustrations) to our small foundation was truly an amazing gift.

All proceeds from sales of the book go 100 per cent into the research which Harry was so keen to support.

The book is available in paperback or Kindle edition.

Paperback copies of the book are $15, plus postage.