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by Martine Beaudoin (Translator), Anne Beaudoin (Author)
Eduardo was only 21 years old when he told his mother he wanted to receive medical aid in dying.
Why? He just could no longer endure the hell in which he had been for such a long time. Dead at the age of six but brutally resuscitated, he was condemned to a most distressing existence. In spite of all the obstacles that rose up before him, he never ceased struggling to find himself again. He wanted to live! When, after years of efforts to get out of his wheelchair, he understood that he would never walk again, he decided to leave, to reclaim his death.
His road toward freedom was not easy. For the day of his assisted voluntary death to arrive, months of search and careful preparation were needed, months impregnated with as much uncertainty as hope that he went through with astonishing serenity. This book tells how Eduardo, always supported by his mother, was able to free himself of his suffering, to leave a hostile world where he could find no meaning to his life. It is somehow a cry for the freedom and sovereignty of each person in their own life.
Besides, the extraordinary journey of Eduardo, whose life was destroyed by medical technology, urges the reader to face reality and to question the legitimacy of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, an intervention that, undeniably, infringes upon the dignity of the person.
