Summary
Cynthia VanRoden was 77 when doctors diagnosed her with terminal lung cancer in the fall of 2002.
Her husband, John VanRoden, fondly recalled how she opted to delay chemotherapy so she could enjoy Christmas.See the full content of this document
Extract
Bodies of Knowledge
"Then she ended up with this flu bug and the doctor did a battery of tests," he said in an interview earlier this month. "That just knocked the stuffing out of her."
But even as she lay in her hospice bed, her body slowly shutting down, the Baltimore County grandmother stayed awake and alert. She wanted her body donated to Anatomy Gifts Registry, a Hanover nonprofit that dissects cadavers, removing tissue, tendon and bone for scientific research."She said, 'It's just what I want to have done,' " said Mr. VanRoden, 80. "And I thought, 'Good!' "The couple went over the emotional issues: Was it OK for her body to be dissected? Was it OK to have the separate parts frozen, packaged and shipped off to universities and hospitals for research? Was it OK to have her remaining remains cremated and sent ba...See the full content of this document
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