This Calif. Woman Is Dying of Pancreatic Cancer: ‘Why I’m Choosing to End My Life in 2 Days’

Last Sunday, close friends and family gathered to celebrate the life of Roseana Spangler-Sims. Some brought flowers, others brought her favorite treat — Lindt dark chocolate with orange peel. It was a farewell gathering, one many of them would never forget.

They took turns reading eulogies as Roseana, 72, sat in the sunshine on a deck in the Palomar mountains north of San Diego. She smiled, soaking it all in.

“I didn’t expect all the love coming my way,” she told PEOPLE about her living wake. “I was blessed to have that sense of closure with all these people. It’s something everybody should experience instead of it all being after you’re gone.”

Time, she knows, is short. On Sunday, Aug. 31, around 6 p.m., Roseana plans to take a prescribed medication that will end her life.

“I’m glad I can take a graceful way out of this life and this pain,” said the Vista, Calif., resident.

According to Compassion & Choices, an advocacy group for end-of-life options, Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) is legal in 11 states and in Washington, D.C.

California’s law, passed in 2015, allows terminally ill adults with a prognosis of six months or less to choose MAID, as long as two doctors confirm the diagnosis and the patient is of sound mind.

Roseana chose MAID after her pancreatic cancer treatment stopped working and the pain became too much. “I’m 99.9% sure this cancer is going to win, so I want to quit torturing myself,” she said.

She decided to share her story with PEOPLE to raise awareness. “I want it available to anyone who wants to go this route,” she said.

Roseana’s diagnosis came in April 2024: stage 4 pancreatic cancer, on top of an existing vascular blockage. The once-active hiker and outdoors lover suddenly found her life turned upside down.

“I used to be super active,” she recalled. Moving from Illinois to California five years earlier, she had fallen in love with the state’s trails and open spaces.

Her love of the outdoors dated back to childhood. Growing up in a farming family in Plainfield, Illinois, she was the oldest of nine. After her father died when she was 12, she helped care for her siblings but found comfort in the woods nearby. “I always had a reverence for nature,” she said.

Over the years, she lived a colorful life — raising two sons, working as a welder, marrying a musician and joining his band as a roadie, and later spending three decades in retail management. After divorcing in 2010, she eventually moved to California in 2020, cleaning houses to make ends meet while enjoying long hikes. She had even planned to move to Florida to live with her son, Shawn, once his house was finished.

Then came cancer. She fought it with chemo and radiation, but after more than a year, doctors told her it wasn’t working.

She had always supported the idea of MAID. “When our pets get to a certain stage where they’re in pain, a lot of people choose to put them down,” she said. “I don’t see why humans can’t decide the same for themselves.”

Her symptoms worsened: constant pain, difficulty eating, mental fog, and exhaustion. Even opioids offered little relief. Eventually, she decided it was time. “You know what? Hang it up. You do have this option. You don’t have to drag it out until you’re screaming in agony.”

Her family supported her choice. “I was 100% on board,” said her son Shawn, 53, who remembered watching his mother-in-law suffer from pancreatic cancer years earlier. “To be able to go out with dignity, I support that.”

Three weeks ago, Roseana received the medication. “I just sat there and looked at it for a while,” she admitted. “It was a reflective moment. But I wasn’t going to go back on it. I was relieved knowing I had this choice.”

On Aug. 18, she left her rental home and traveled to a mountain cabin she had once hiked. There, her son Shawn, his wife, and her sister joined her. They’ve spent the past nine days together — telling stories, cooking her favorite eggplant parmesan, and watching hummingbirds on the deck.

Shawn admitted moments of doubt. “We’re talking, we’re laughing, and I think, ‘What if you had another month or two of good life?’ But her pain isn’t going away. It’s getting worse.”

Roseana, however, is at peace. In two days, her family will be with her when she takes the medication.

“Having them physically there as my last sight is beyond comfort to me,” she said. “This is what life handed me. But I’m not going to go out of this life just a babbling old lady in intense pain. That ain’t happening.”