Las Vegas mother-of-4 with terminal blood cancer is planning her own death

Mother-of-four, Hanna Olivas, has terminal cancer. She has carefully planned her own death, surrounded by family, but it will require her to move from her home in Nevada to California, where assisted suicide is legal

Hanna Olivas had no choice in developing cancer, or the brutal one year prognosis she was given. 

But if Hanna has to die so soon when she’s still so young (the mother-of-four is just 45), she’s determined to make sure she gets to choose exactly the death she wants, she told People. 

A so-called ‘death with dignity’ isn’t legal in her home state and, since receiving her terminal diagnosis in 2017, Hanna’s been fighting tirelessly to change that. 

She has been rallying lawmakers in Nevada to pass a bill that would allow certain terminally ill patients, like herself, to end their own lives. 

But Hanna knows that the law may not change before she’s ready to end hers. 

So, in the meantime, she’s working her way through an ambitious bucket list that includes everything from riding the New York City subway to skydiving. 

And when the time comes, she and her husband, Jerry, will move to California and fill a prescription for a lethal white powder that will let Hanna drift off while gazing at the Pacific ocean, just as she planned to. 

‘The water is where I find the most peace,’ Hanna told People. 

Hanna Olivas (right) was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2017 and given three to five years to live. Physician-assisted suicide is not legal in her home state of Nevada, so she and her husband, Jerry (left) will move to California where she can die with a view of the ocean

Hanna Olivas (right) was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2017 and given three to five years to live. Physician-assisted suicide is not legal in her home state of Nevada, so she and her husband, Jerry (left) will move to California where she can die with a view of the ocean 

‘The idea itself is terrifying, but my family won’t see my suffer and I won’t be in pain. I’ll be in peace. That’s all you can ask for.’ 

Hanna was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2017 after she pent months in pain following a miscarriage. 

The excruciating ache in her bones was actually the build-up of cancer cells in her bone marrow, the hallmark of the rare cancer that strikes less than 200,000 people a year.   

Hanna was just 44 when she was diagnosed, but doctors gave her only three to five years to live – and a grueling treatment regimen. 

Refusing to give up hope, the mother-of-four suffered through five rounds of chemotherapy and might have done more if the treatment hadn’t started killing her by damaging her kidneys and liver. 

And then her medical team found breast cancer, in April of this year. 

For multiple myeloma patients, living five years after diagnosis is a crap shoot – the have a 50 percent shot. 

But now Hannah was fighting two monsters and treatment was failing her. 

She didn’t give up hope – and continues to travel to University of California, Los Angeles, for treatments – but she started to think about how she would like to die.  

‘I want to die peacefully, surrounded by my husband and our two sons, two daughters and precious grandchildren holding my hand in prayer,’ she wrote for the Las Vegas Sun. 

‘The last words I want to hear are “We love you, Mom. We love you, Grandma.”‘  

Hanna, 45  believes that how and when she dies should be her choice alone

With the time she has left, Hanna is checking items off her bucket list, including a trip to New York City. Pictured there with an NYPD officer

Hanna, 45  believes that how and when she dies should be her choice alone (left). With the time she has left, Hanna is checking items off her bucket list, including a trip to New York City. She is pictured there with an NYPD officer

Hanna wants to choose the moment that this happens, and to do it in a place she feels content and at peace, rather than in a hospital where machines sustain her dying body. 

That choice is only possible in eight states and Washington, DC, that have passed Death with Dignity laws since Oregon became the first to do so in 1994. 

For patients with confirmed, terminal diagnoses who are deemed psychologically healthy, doctors can prescribe a lethal dose of drugs. 

When she takes hers, Hanna will drift off to sleep in a few minutes and be dead within an hour. 

This, she told People, will have to happen in California. 

The majority of people living in Nevada – 72 percent, to be precise – support the Death with Dignity bill that has already passed in the state’s Senate. 

One reason she supports 'Death with Dignity' laws is that Hanna does not want her family (pictured with her here), including four children and two grandchildren, to see her suffer

One reason she supports ‘Death with Dignity’ laws is that Hanna does not want her family (pictured with her here), including four children and two grandchildren, to see her suffer

But these laws are controversial and while she continues to work with Compassion & Choices, a right-to-die lobby, Hanna doesn’t intend to spend her final days waiting for permission to die. 

Instead, she celebrated her 45th birthday with a blow-out around her home city of Las Vegas and hopes to ‘swim with sea turtles…[and] jump out of an airplane,’ in addition to seeing a cure found for multiple myeloma. 

This week, she is checking off several bucket list items – including seeing the Lion King, riding the subway and eating a cheeseburger in New York City. 

Hanna’s bucket list ends with her husband and four children surrounding her, with a view of the ocean, long before the worst pain and suffering her cancer can cause sets in. 

‘I want my family to remember me smiling, happy, peaceful and loving life,’ Hanna told People. 

‘The last thing in the world I want to do is die, but it’s going to happen, this should be my decision and my decision only.’

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