Cancer patient ending life answers questions online

Thousands of people from around the world paid tribute over the weekend to an unnamed man they never met and never will. He had announced in an online forum that he plans to end his life Tuesday.

An outpouring of support — songs, YouTube videos and a photo gallery to give him a "world tour" on Google maps — began Saturday night on reddit.com, a social networking site, when a post went up titled "51 hours left to live."

"On Tuesday I'll finally end my battle with cancer thanks to Oregon's Death with Dignity Act," said the entry, submitted by someone calling himself "Lucidending." He invited others to AMA — shorthand for "ask me anything."

He did not identify himself, but said he was diagnosed with lymphoma six years ago, it has spread to his brain and "I just can't do more surgeries." He has ended his pain medication "to regain what little dignity and clarity I can" and thinks Monday "will be the hardest." He plans to make a YouTube video. His home was "consumed in medical bills." His last meal will be Jell-O.

He's not religious, is "terrified" to die, hopes "it doesn't hurt" and says his care has been "a huge burden" to loved ones.

He doesn't say how long he has lived in Oregon, where a 1997 law allows terminally ill adult Oregonians to obtain prescriptions for self-administered, lethal doses of medications. According to a January report by the Oregon Public Health Division, 96 prescriptions were written under the provisions of the law last year, about the same as 95 in 2009.

In a blog about the report, Peg Sandeen, executive director of the Portland-based Death with Dignity National Center, said "Oregon's law is working the way it was intended. It lends peace of mind to terminally ill Oregonians without any evidence of a slippery slope harming vulnerable Oregonians."

Feedback on reddit, Facebook and other sites has been overwhelmingly supportive. "I'll see you across the river Styx," one comment said. When he mentioned that he once saw the "sun rise and set in the same day" in Key West, posters sent links to webcams there.

One post on NeoGAF, a gaming site, said of Lucidending's decision: "That's not courage. Courage would be if he decided to live as long as possible despite the horrible pain."

On another site, a poster raised the possibility that it might all be a hoax.

Reddit.com's Erik Martin said administrators have no way of "verifying whether this guy's claims are real or not," because site users are not required to provide contact information. When Lucidending stopped posting, about an hour after he began, reddit tried to help him but learned through a third party that he had forgotten his password. Lucidending did not respond to private messages Sunday.

Filmmaker Peter Richardson, whose How to Die in Oregon won the Sundance 2011 Grand Jury Prize in documentary, says many of the comments suggest a growing awareness and desire to confront difficult issues "in an open and honest way."

"Many of the posts are as much about living as they are dying," he says, "What meant the most to you, what were your regrets — and many posters have indicated they will change their own lives after hearing this man's story and his advice."

He answered posters' questions online.

•Greatest moment: "Finishing my masters degree, from a hospital bed."

•Fondest memory: "Seeing my nephew beat cancer."

•Regrets: "Just one" — that he bought an engagement ring for his high school sweetheart but never gave it to her, then joined the Army. "I have a letter for her that she will get Monday morning."

•Words of wisdom: "That nothing we have is worth hurting anyone else for."