I made a late submission to\u00a0the Parliamentary Committee Inquiry into End of Life Choices in the Australian state of Victoria, not expecting\u00a0it to be\u00a0accepted, but it was. Here it is :<\/p>\n
\u2026the tintinnabulation that so musically wells\u00a0<\/i>
\nFrom the bells, bells, bells, bells,
\n<\/i>Bells, bells, bells –
\n<\/i>From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.<\/i><\/p>\nEdgar Allan Poe \u2018The Bells\u2019 (c.1848)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I have tinnitus, or as I prefer to think of it, tintinnabulation. The word was invented by Edgar\u00a0Allan Poe to describe the lingering sounds a bell makes after being struck. It makes it sound\u00a0more poetic and less like a disease, or a condition, but it is not an accurate description of what I\u00a0hear, and it doesn\u2019t fade like tintinnabulation.<\/p>\n
Many people suffer from tinnitus but in my own case I don\u2019t say \u2018suffer\u2019 because it is more discomfort than suffering and, whilst certainly unpleasant, it\u2019s not unbearable, at least not at this\u00a0stage. Do I wish it would stop? Yes of course. The realisation that it is unlikely to ever stop makes me feel quite claustrophobic. It varies in intensity, pitch and frequency. Sometimes it\u2019s less loud\u00a0and not as insistent. And when I\u2019m listening to the ocean it almost disappears, it is as if it neutralises it. (Some tinnitus sufferers wear a device that constantly produces a noise which more or\u00a0less successfully neutralises the sound.)<\/p>\n
A Dutch woman Gaby Olthuis, did suffer unbearably from tinnitus. As she lived in The\u00a0Netherlands where euthanasia is available for people who are suffering unbearably but who are not not\u00a0terminally ill. But Gaby did not just have tinnitus, she subsequently developed hyperacusis, a\u00a0condition where you become so hypersensitive to sound that it causes unbearable pain. I am also\u00a0sensitive to certain sounds and I hope I don\u2019t end up with hyperacusis. Is it possible for me to imagine\u00a0it getting so bad that I would not want to be alive anymore? Absolutely.<\/p>\n
Gaby successfully requested and received euthanasia in The Netherlands in 2014 aged 47. Many people were\u00a0ready to condemn her, especially because she was young and she had children. The Levenseindekliniek (end of life\u00a0clinic) was reprimanded by the authorities for acceding to her request. But who could deny that her\u00a0suffering was unbearable after watching this heartbreaking interview with her, recorded three weeks\u00a0before her death?<\/p>\n