Emily Taylor died just the way she wanted.

“She was in no pain whatsoever,” said Taylor’s younger sister, 86-year-old Genevieve McMahon.

Taylor had dreaded the possibility of wasting away in a nursing home, hooked up to a machine, more dead than alive. To her, that made no sense.

“My sister believed that each person has the right to choose the way he or she leaves life, to die on their own terms and not someone else’s,” said McMahon, seated in the living room of the west Lawrence home she and Taylor shared for nine years.

Taylor, a former dean of women at Kansas University, a former member of the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts and founder of the Lawrence-area Coalition to Honor End-of-Life Choices, died May 1. She was 89.

Last month, the Kansas LIFE (Living Initiatives For End-of-Life Care) Project posthumously recognized Taylor for her efforts to help others die peaceful, pain-free deaths.

After this year, the group’s Champion for LIFE award will be called the Emily Taylor Award.

“She was a constant, visionary voice for excellence in end-of-life care,” said Donna Bales, the project’s executive director.

Preparations paid off

Genevieve McMahon, the sister of former Kansas University dean of women Emily Taylor, says her sister died in the same manner that she lived. McMahon and palliative-care workers hope people take time to plan and prepare for their own deaths.

Long before her death, Taylor had filled out a living will, given her sister durable power of attorney for health care decisions and made sure her physician, Dr. Joan Brunfeldt, knew she didn’t want to be kept alive by artificial means.

“She covered all the bases,” McMahon said. “Her DNR (do not resuscitate order) stayed on the front of the refrigerator until the day I needed it.”

Shortly after 7 a.m. on April 27, a Tuesday, McMahon heard Taylor ring a glass bell she kept by her bed.

“I looked at the clock, and I knew something was wrong,” she said. “It was unusual for her to be up that early.”

McMahon went to her sister’s bedroom.

“She was alive. Her eyes were open,” she said. “But she was not responsive.”

Taylor had suffered a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in her lungs.

McMahon called 911. When the ambulance arrived, she handed one of the crew members her sister’s do-not-resuscitate order.

At the hospital, Brunfeldt confirmed Taylor’s end-of-life wishes: no food, no water and absolutely no pain. She died four days later.

“When people read ‘no food, no water,’ they’re going to think she died hungry or of thirst, but that was not the case,” McMahon said. “This was not a painful death. She was on morphine. She received excellent care. She felt nothing.”

‘In the minority’

Most people are not as prepared for death.

“Emily was definitely in the minority,” said Julie Prideaux, Coalition to Honor End-of-Life Choices chairwoman.

Families need to communicate end-of-life wishes Kansas LIFE Project

“I’ve not seen the statistics — I don’t think there are any — that show how many people die the way they’d like to die,” said Prideaux, who’s also communication coordinator for Midland Hospice Care. “But I think it’s safe to say that more don’t than do. It’s probably 20-80 or 10-90.”

Too often, Prideaux said, people die slow, painful deaths that drain their families’ finances.

“Most people die in a clinical setting that’s not as comfortable as home,” she said. “They’re away from family, friends, pets and neighbors. Their schedule is not their own and, if they’re in a hospital setting, there’s always someone poking, prodding and wanting to draw blood for that ‘one more test.’

“The hospital is there to keep them alive,” Prideaux said, “not to let them die.”

Pain is commonplace. National surveys have found that more than half of all deaths in institutional settings — hospitals and nursing homes, mostly — involve moderate to severe pain.

“That’s really not that surprising when you think about it,” said Robert Twillman, director of the pain management program at Kansas University Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan. “The second-leading cause of death (behind heart disease) is cancer, and cancer, by its very nature, can cause tremendous amounts of pain.”

“All of us are going to die,” McMahon said. “But dying doesn’t mean we all have to suffer.”