Compassion & Choices advocate Roseana Spangler-Sims wanted to have some say in what the end of her life looked like. After enduring more than a year of treatment for stage 4 pancreatic cancer with little to show for it other than the savage side effects, she decided it was time.
In July 2025, Roseana enrolled in hospice, and with the help of her death doula, Compassion & Choices volunteer Melissa McClave, started planning for her death.
A three-part series from People.com chronicles Roseana’s last days, spent at a vacation rental near Palomar Mountain surrounded by family and friends, sharing stories, jokes and at least a few references to Star Trek, one of her great passions. Over the course of two weeks, Roseana was feted by loved ones in a living wake, played poker, made her son’s favorite dish — eggplant parmesan — and watched hummingbirds drink from feeders on the deck where she planned to ingest her medication.
She granted People access to the most precious hours of her life, according to reporter Eileen Finan, “in the hopes that others can better understand what it means to choose [medical aid in dying] —and why it’s been so important to her.”
For Roseana, medical aid in dying meant she could live out the rest of her life without fear or anxiety, knowing that she would get to say her goodbyes and die peacefully and still be “totally me.”
As she shared with People, this would look like taking the medication while wearing Chicago Cubs pajama pants and a custom Star Trek t-shirt and listening to a playlist featuring “Fly Me to the Moon” sung by an actress from the original Star Trek series.
Perhaps most importantly, however, it meant passing peacefully onto her next “adventure,” as Roseana put it, on a deck overlooking the forest with her loved ones beside her.
“I’m ready to go,” Roseana told People. “I’m more at peace than I’ve ever been.”
Roseana took her aid-in-dying medication on August 31, 2025, with her son, his wife and her sister by her side.
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