TruthArchive.ai - Tweets Saved By @AmandaAchtman

Posted - January 22, 2024 at 5:10 PM

Saved - April 23, 2025 at 5:00 AM

@AmandaAchtman - Amanda Achtman

Nobody should be offered euthanasia instead of pain medications. Listen to Marg Rodrigues tell her story. https://t.co/ZFGtcTZL2k

Video Transcript AI Summary

Margaret Ricus, a 64-year-old living in Langley, BC, developed regional pain syndrome after a sidewalk accident in 2005. This nervous condition causes constant burning pain in her hand, disrupting her life and hobbies. The pain requires fentanyl, pregabalon, and nebula nebula for management, but after her family doctor left, she struggled to find a physician to prescribe them due to concerns about opioid prescriptions. Ricus believes the government has overreacted, affecting legitimate pain patients. She was essentially offered MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) instead, which she equates to denying other essential medications. Ricus opposes MAID due to her faith, her love for her family, and her role in her church. She hopes to find a doctor who will prescribe her medication so she can live to see her grandchildren grow up.

AI Similar Videos

Full Transcript

Speaker 0: My name is Margaret Ricus, and I live in Langley, British Columbia. Well, I was born in Ontario. My husband and met very early. We were 15 and 17 and married very young. Had our children young. I was 20, 20 one. They had their dad with them for a long time. We lost him in ten, eleven years ago. My daughter is just my rock. She's everything. She's just my all around. And my son is there too. He comes over most weekends to make sure his mom's still around, and he has a little girl. My daughter has twin boys, which I've been in their lives since they've been minutes old. Speaker 1: Bring me back to what happened twenty years ago, the sidewalk incident. Speaker 0: Back in about twenty o five, I stumbled on the sidewalk. I stumbled up the stairs, smacked, smacked my hand. So they put a cast on it for six weeks. The cast didn't fix it, so then they did dye injection in discovered that it had regional pain syndrome. It's a nervous condition, so my spinal cord is still telling my hand it's broken. It's not. It's in the nerves. And so it burns, it swivels up, it does all its own little things, and it never stops. It goes day and night, and that was that. It was the end of me playing the organ, that was the end of me printing in my preschool, that was the end of so much, so many things for me. I'd already had asthma. I'd already had been having treatments for IVIG. I'd already had these other two diagnoses, and now this on top of it. Speaker 1: What's it like living with this degree of pain? Speaker 0: It's horrible. You shut yourself in from people. You say, oh, I'm not going to go out tonight. I'm just like, I'm done. I can't. The nights are the worst. The nights you just want to shut them off. You want to shut everything off. And the only thing that stops it are medications. We started with regular pain medications, but nothing cut it. And then my pain specialist put me on fentanyl. A few months ago, I phoned my family doctor to renew a prescription, at which time the receptionist said, Oh, she won't be coming back to work. She's taking some time off. She's not well. Well, what do I do about my prescriptions? Problem is most pharmacies or doctors won't prescribe their opioids. So I started going around trying to find a doctor that would fill these prescriptions. They are fentanyl, pregabalon, and nebula nebula. Nobody would fill them. I went to a dozen different doctor all because of the Downtown Eastside drug problem. I really do believe that this government has gone way overboard in shutting down the doctors and saying, No, you can't prescribe or you'll lose your license. But that's got nothing to do with people who are using it legally for pain management. The government is more pushing them towards, well we can't prescribe this but we can prescribe MAID. It'd be like somebody saying, oh I can't offer you your IVIG medications anymore, or your asthma medications anymore, or someone down the street saying, Oh, we don't do diabetes medications anymore. Everybody's off of it. Send them off to MAID. What's the difference? Speaker 1: How does it feel to be offered euthanasia? Speaker 0: I'm 64 years old. That's a pretty sad way to go when I have a daughter and a son and three grandchildren that will miss me greatly. Never to mind a whole group of church people that I'm an elder in this church and work in so many ministries. If they knew that my intention was to leave them, they would have an absolute fit. My daughter has tried to find doctors for me and it's just it's incredibly difficult. But I have a very strong faith that I won't do it that way. I won't accept MAiD because I have a right to live. I pray that, you know, family doctor will take me under his wing and prescribe these drugs And then I can watch my grandchildren grow up. I can watch them maybe even graduate. That's my hope.

@AmandaAchtman — Amanda Achtman

Posted - April 5, 2024 at 8:51 PM

Saved - April 6, 2024 at 5:03 PM

@AmandaAchtman - Amanda Achtman

@echipiuk https://t.co/X7tW3fKg8t

@AmandaAchtman - Amanda Achtman

"I don't think it's right for the Government to push euthanasia on the Nations. We really believe the Creator is the one who's going to take us back." – Eulalia Running Rabbit https://t.co/rkZlqyKgle

Video Transcript AI Summary

As a child, I was named Spirit Eyes by my grandparents. During an indigenous funeral, my late father was honored with smudging and singing the flag song. After a car accident left me with a broken neck, the thought of my grandson gave me hope. I believe in the creator guiding us to the afterlife, not euthanasia. My grandfather taught me to embrace each day and live life to the fullest, accepting that when our time comes, the creator will take us home.

AI Similar Videos

Full Transcript

Speaker 0: My native name as a child was, means spirit eyes. They named me after my eyes. I was very fortunate to be raised by my grandparents. Speaker 1: Tell me what happens during an indigenous funeral. Speaker 0: Well, my late dad, Clifford Miniguns, he died of a heart attack. He was smudged, meaning that, using sweetgrass feather, a fan feather, and they would just smudge. Some would wrap them in their custom blanket, the Pendleton blanket, and then they would sing them the flag song. The eagle is a holy bird, and people are always, like, looking up. They see the eagle, and they know that they're they're okay. Speaker 1: Why is it important that the story doesn't end with euthanasia? Speaker 0: It was in 2009, I got into a car accident, and I broke the second vertebrae. A doctor, he told me, we're gonna put a halo on you. And I thought, wow. And I thought, a halo? You know, like, what did I know about a halo? So they made me a a metal vest and, the the halo itself and not realizing that they were gonna drill into my skull, and it was really heavy. I'll tell you the truth. I was defeated because who's gonna take care of me? No. I didn't wanna laugh. But because the nurse told me, Eulalia, you had a grandson. She ran over with the camera, and she said, here he is. So that was the gift. Go on live in the Alleluia. I wanted to be with my children, my grandchildren. And when I saw his picture, I thought, no. Beautiful gift. So I'm just gonna keep praying. And so I did. Doctor came back that one day, closed the curtains, and he knelt down beside me, you know, holding my hand. And he said, Julia, everything is healing perfect. Perfect. I told you that you were gonna be out of here in 6 months. I wouldn't take that up in 2 months. I said, oh my god. I was so grateful to know that I am gonna get out of here with my neck back. Speaker 1: Now in Canada, the government has legalized euthanasia and wants to know what indigenous people think about euthanasia. Speaker 0: I don't think it's right for the government to push euthanasia on the nations. We really believe in the creator is the one that's gonna take us back. They call it happy hunting grounds. The big sandhills for you people, you say heaven. So that's where we're going. You're not gonna hear very many of native people saying, yeah, okay. Go ahead and inject me with that. I just wanna die. No. We're like a storybook. Every day, we have to turn the page. That's what my grandfather told me. He said, you can't go back and think you can erase. You can't erase your past. We have to live our life to the fullest. Take today as your last day. And if that's the day, that's the day, and he'll take you home.