Man schedules his death so he can enjoy living
In 2015, Alex Pandolfo was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia, a term referring to a progressive cognitive decline.
Despite Alzheimer’s, Pandolfo leads a full life. But when his health declines, he plans to have an assisted death.
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Alzheimer’s causes memory loss, deterioration in the use of language, and alters mood and behaviour. There is no known cure.
Specialists testing Pandolfo, then 61, gave him three or four years to live, with the possibility he might survive for a decade but with complete loss of lucidity and the need for permanent care.
Disease progression varies among individuals. Some studies say people usually live five to eight years after diagnosis, but others can live up to 20.
For now, Pandolfo sets about 10 alarms a day when he knows he has something to do. Notifications tell him when to go grocery shopping and remind him 10 minutes later in case he forgets.
If he’s meeting his solicitor, an alarm will tell him when to leave, then another will remind him of their meeting time and the person’s name. When cooking in the evening, he sets several alarms on his Alexa device, which tell him to check on the onions in the oven or to start chopping potatoes.
“If I have people coming over for a meal, then I create a menu on the Notes app on my phone so I don’t forget what I’m preparing,” he says. “But I delete these notes whenever I create a new one, so I don’t get confused.”
Past decade
Pandolfo’s condition has remained stable over the past decade. “What can I say except I don’t know why?” he says wryly. “The mind is a very strange thing.”
Other than hosting dinners at home for his friends and close family, he keeps busy – organising activities for the local chapter of the Manchester City supporters club and attending protests in nearby Lancaster in solidarity with Palestine and for migrant rights.
On balmy days, he takes a chair to the seaside, just a few minutes away from his home, and sits there enjoying the breeze. Throughout, alarms intermittently sound.
But one day, the alarms won’t be enough. As someone who has now outlived his expected lifespan, Pandolfo believes that each new day cannot be taken for granted. He says a sudden slump in his mental abilities may come at any time.
When that happens, Pandolfo, a vocal, active advocate of assisted dying, does not want to continue living.
“I’ve never been afraid of death,” Pandolfo says. “I’m afraid of not having any quality of life.”
Dying and the way that somebody dies are two different things, he adds. “Now that I know I won’t have to suffer a long, painful death, I fear neither.”
