B.C. woman dies by MAID at 49 after young-onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis: ‘This was chosen for me’

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The Alzheimer Society of Canada lists 10 possible signs of dementia. They include memory changes that affect day-to-day abilities, difficulty doing familiar tasks, disorientation in time and place and misplacing things.

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The isolation is different at that age too. “It’s a life-altering diagnosis, to receive that in your 40s and your 50s and your early 60s, when all of your friends are living very different lives,” Cooke said.

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Luna wrote on a fundraiser page in January that her neurologist had given her five to seven years. She was raising money for a first and last trip with her daughters. The timeline moved in her favour once. In a February update she wrote that she had pushed her MAID date further into the year. “Such good news,” she wrote. “Still progressing as steadily as before I’m just moving the goal post.”

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By June she had opened a second fundraiser, for her end-of-life expenses. “I’m 49 and I will be accessing MAID as my decline has come faster than I had hoped,” she wrote, adding that she did not want to leave her family the cost of funeral expenses on top of their grief.

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In the July 21 video, Luna said she was exactly two weeks out from her MAID appointment, which set her date for early August. The disease was taking her mind, her feelings and her connections, she said, and had brought night terrors and delusions. “I’ve spent the last few days just in bed sleeping,” she said. “I’ve just been crying for a week.”

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In her final video, posted the next day, Luna said the date had moved again, to July 25, and that her palliative care doctor had been at her home telling her the decision belonged to her. “She said, when would you go if it was just your choice? And I said, now,” Luna said. “And so we called and the hospital had an opening for Saturday at 10 o’clock.”

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She added: “It’s a hard decision to make, I have to tell you, because I’m living in a body that doesn’t feel comfortable, safe, good, nothing.”

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Under the Criminal Code, a person must have decision-making capacity to receive MAID and must consent immediately before it is provided, according to Justice Canada. That final consent can be waived only in narrow circumstances, and only where a person’s natural death is already reasonably foreseeable.

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“I’m not choosing this. This was chosen for me,” Luna said in the final video. “I didn’t wake up and think, ‘whoa, I would love to have young onset Alzheimer’s at the age of 46.’ With two children? No.”

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Findlay, Luna’s daughter, posted a message to the June fundraiser confirming the death. “Thank you for all the love, support and privacy,” she wrote. The page had raised $11,766 of a $20,000 goal as of Tuesday evening.

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In her final video, Luna said there was one thing she hoped people took from her. “You just need to act your way into loving yourself,” she said. “If I can do it, you can do it, too.”

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