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Ottawa Citizen

April Poelstra promised her dying father two things: She would find a way to help him die, and she would tell the world about it.

Jack Poelstra, known to radio listeners on the Smiths Falls area by his handle of J.P. Campbell, was diagnosed last November with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, commonly called ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. It is a neurodegenerative disease that eventually causes respiratory failure.

Its progress was fast and relentless. By January, Poelstra wasn’t able to drive. He ended up in hospital with pneumonia. In May, after he was discharged, he moved in with his daughter and her family in Smiths Falls. Less than a month later, federal assisted death legislation was passed.

“When he was younger, he figured death would be an instant thing. My grandmother passed away in her sleep.”

But it became obvious that an ALS death would not be so quick or peaceful. Polestra remembers rushing her father to the hospital one day when he was struggling to breathe. “The terror on his face when he was choking … it was horrifying.”

Campbell wanted to be able to die on his own terms.

“He used to say: ‘Put fur on me and take me to the vet.’ He thought if you could take an animal in (to be euthanized), you should have the same right.”

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