Completed Life Initiative Podcasts

In this episode of Voices of the Completed Life, we interviewed Lynda Shannon Bluestein. Lynda is a Connecticut woman who recently won the right to access Medical Aid-in-Dying in court under Vermont’s Act 39. Prior to Lynda’s decision to sue Vermont, she received a terminal cancer diagnosis in 2021, which followed two-prior battles with cancer dating back to 2019. Lynda’s desire to seek out Medica...

For this episode, we spoke to Rachelle Chapman, an author and activist who suffered a spinal cord injury in 2010 that left her quadriplegic. Rachelle has since become an outspoken voice in the disability community, as well as an advocate for the right to die. She has made appearances in national media, such as the Today Show, Katie Couric, MSNBC, and Cosmopolitan magazine; she maintains a blog cal...

In this episode, we will meet Cheryl Romaire. Cheryl lives with two autoimmune-triggered inflammatory spine diseases – as well as numerous related conditions, all of which cause serious neurological symptoms, the most present of which is a constant, electrifying pain. While Cheryl has been doing her best to cope with this pain, she has been approved for medical aid-in-dying in Canada, which she in...

This episode is the second part of the story of Gayle Garlock, a man diagnosed with Lewey Body Dementia, who legally accessed Medical Aid-in-Dying in Victoria, Canada in 2019. We spoke to Geoff Garlock, one of Gayle’s three sons, who provided us with insight into who Gayle was as a father, husband, and person. We will also hear, once again, from Barbara, to dive deeper into how Gayle’s death reson...

This episode is the first part of the story of Gayle Garlock, a man diagnosed with Lewey Body Dementia, who legally accessed Medical Aid-in-Dying in Canada. We spoke to Gayle's wife, Barbara, as well as Gayle's MAiD provider, Dr. Stefanie Green. This first part of the story will focus on Gayle's background, and the legal, clinical, and ethical challenges he faced in accessing MAiD with a dementia...

In this episode, we interview Faith Sommerfield, Founder of the Completed Life Initiative. Faith’s mission was to change the way people die. Throughout her life, close experiences with horrible deaths taught Faith that suffering was not natural. Access to self-determination at the end of life became a core tenant of Faith’s beliefs. The story of Faith Sommerfield is the story of the Completed Life...

In this episode, we interview Carol, a woman who's husband, Doug, chose to end his own life. Carol and Doug's life together, and their frequent conversations about death, led Carol to have a unique perspective on her husband's decision. Together, we explore Doug's decision, what led to it, what kind of person he was, what kind of family he and Carol raised, and how all of these factors contributed...

Episode 3 contains the first half of a live panel discussion that originally aired on March 10th, 2022. This event explored the complexities of our inaugural Podcast narrative, the Story of Sheryl. Our esteemed panelists discussed the elements of Sheryl's story that intrigue our listeners in both Episode 1 and Episode 2 of the Voices of the Completed Life Podcast. What does Sheryl mean when she sa...

Sheryl was a brave, creative, and progressive woman, who sought a completed life by way of a gentle death. Sheryl believed she was one fall away from experiencing a bad death. She wanted to die unencumbered. In our second Podcast episode, Sheryl describes what her completed life means to her. We hear why she taught herself how to make nitro brew, and what the lessons of women in the Inuit traditio...

In this episode, we interview a member of the Completed Life community, a woman named Sheryl, who reached out to us with her story about her notion of her completed life. Together, we explore the aspects of life that make Sheryl’s life worth living, how she seeks to eliminate suffering at the end of her life, and how she sees herself as “one fall away” from having a bad death. Sheryl will describe...