Hanna Olivas Fights For The Right To Die With Dignity

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

Hanna Olivas, a 44-year-old Hispanic mother living in Nevada, is fighting tooth and nail for the right to a dignified death, after being diagnosed with a rare type of incurable cancer that affects the blood and causes her it produces truly agonizing pain.

Married with four children of her own plus four from her husband, Olivas was diagnosed in 2017 with multiple myeloma. This disease produces injuries in the body with great ease, in addition to sharp pain in the bones and extreme fatigue.

"I had to go to six different doctors until the final diagnosis at [UCLA University Hospital]," Olivas tells People en Español. "I had extreme fatigue, nausea, I was short of breath, I had anemia and dizziness as well as skull and bone pain."

“After nine months of testing, I was discovered that type of incurable cancer. I was devastated. I felt that my world had ended right there”, continues the woman who is a makeup artist and whose parents emigrated from Mexico. "In 2017 they told me that this type of cancer in the blood is very aggressive and they gave me 5 years … my family took it very seriously."

The woman, who has been married to Jerry Olivas for six years - "my friend from childhood," she says - suffers from the logical restlessness of the uncertain future that awaits her children. "I am the glue of this family, the one that maintains calm and peace … it is very difficult for me," he says. “It is the hardest thing. Every day dealing with extreme fatigue, bone pain … my family trusts my support. I trust my wonderful husband Jerry, he is my mainstay.”

Right in the framework of the celebration of the National Day of Health Decisions (which is celebrated every April 16) Olivas joined the organization Compassion & Choices, based in Denver, Colorado, to make an appeal to the legislators of the Nevada state to pass laws that allow a dignified death.

"I joined Compassion & Choices because I think we should have the option of choosing how we die," he says. "Why have to suffer when there is no longer anything that medicine can do to cure an illness? Why should hopeless people wait until the pain is excruciating? Why would I want my family to see me suffer as I am before I die?”

Olivas assures that he will not give up: “I simply want to die without suffering. Our God suffered horribly before his death. I beg Him to touch the hearts of the legislators during this Easter celebration.”

"We hope that Hanna's passionate plea will help convince indecisive legislators to authorize this compassionate measure," said Elizabeth Armijo, Regional Campaign and Outreach Director for Compassion & Choices, in a statement sent to People en Español. “The Death with Dignity measure is simply an option that allows the person who is going to die, the option to die without unnecessary and intolerant pain. Nevadans should not be forced to suffer at the end of their lives."