Euthanasia, 49 years old with muscular dystrophy, asks for assisted suicide

“I guess I will probably feel relieved not to struggle so much anymore. And I will have no regrets. I will only regret leaving my sister, because she too is sick and suffers as much as I am.” So Stefano Gheller, 49 years old from Cassola (Vicenza), suffering from birth from a severe form of muscular dystrophy: the man, in an interview with the local press, explained that he had sent a letter to the 7 Pedemontana Local Health Authority in recent days in which he asks to “urgently activate the procedure envisaged for legal access to medically assisted suicide”. “I think about it every day,” he explains. Gheller wants to follow the path of Federico ‘Mario’ Carboni, who a few weeks ago was accompanied to the ‘sweet death’ after having obtained the green light from the Ethics Committee of the Healthcare Company of the Marche. “I do not want to die right now, but I want to have the right to do so as soon as I feel that the time has come – he specifies – The request is for this: to make sure that everything is ready and no one can prevent me from going as far as bottom “. As for the choice of medically assisted suicide, Stefano explains that “in these conditions it is increasingly difficult to move forward. I have lived in a wheelchair since I was 15 years old, I am attached to a respirator 24 hours a day. awake, I know I could choke on food or a sip of water. I like going to concerts, being in contact with people, going out into the fresh air: I do it in the summer, but in the winter I have to stay closed at home for months, because a common cold could kill me. A few years ago I decided to go to Switzerland, where euthanasia is already regulated. Then I thought that I could make sense of my death if I stayed here, fighting with the Coscioni Association so that medically assisted suicide can also be practiced in Italy. I do it for my sister too: she wants to live, but if in the future she changes her mind, I want her to be left free to choose not to suffer anymore “. “This morning the bishop of Vicenza, Monsignor Beniamino Pizziol telephoned me – reports Stefano – He asked me how I was and if I was convinced of my choice, I answered yes; then he asked me if I would like a visit from him and so in a few weeks he will come to see me. He knew that in August I will go on vacation to Bibione and so he even offered to pay for my stay. He is a nice person, the bishop: he does not judge, he made me feel understood “, he says.” In the presence of a doctor, a box with a button will be placed in my hands: when I press it, I will be given a drug that will make me fall asleep forever, without suffering. It may seem distressing, but I must say – he confesses – that the idea is not it terrifies me that much. “