{"id":51637,"date":"2019-10-15T17:03:48","date_gmt":"2019-10-16T00:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.trektoday.com\/content\/?p=51637"},"modified":"2019-10-15T17:03:48","modified_gmt":"2019-10-16T00:03:48","slug":"stewart-im-not-immortal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/2019\/10\/stewart-im-not-immortal\/","title":{"rendered":"Stewart: I’m Not Immortal"},"content":{"rendered":"

On ITV<\/em>‘s This Morning<\/em> program, Sir Patrick Stewart <\/strong>spoke about assisted dying. Stewart is a patron of Dignity of Dying<\/em>, a group that seeks to change the UK laws regarding assisted dying for patients who are terminally-ill.<\/p>\n

The topic is personal to Stewart, who has a friend whose wife was ill with cancer and attempted suicide twice, finally succeeding on the second attempt.<\/p>\n

“[The way she committed suicide was] a traumatic, painful, miserable way to die, said Stewart.”And [it was] a traumatic way for your husband to discover that’s the way you’ve died.<\/p>\n

“So often when I’m talking about doctor-assisted dying, it is the situation concerning loved ones, relatives, children, friends; like my friend telling me, where this comfort needs to be given.”<\/p>\n

Stewart’s own health scare back in the early 2000’s made him realize that he wasn’t immortal.<\/p>\n

“I was diagnosed very unexpectedly during my annual physical and…my cardiologist said to me ‘What are you doing this afternoon?’ and I said ‘actually, I’m going to Paramount Pictures<\/em> for lunch.’ He said ‘I’d rather you didn’t’ and in five minutes, I was on a gurney giving details of next-of-kin so it was rather dramatic. So I didn’t have time to brood on it but what I did know was that I was in the best possible hands I could have been in and that I was going to be taken care of whatever the outcome.<\/p>\n

“But yes, it was a wake-up call. Patrick, you are not immune.”<\/p>\n