The Tinnitus Euthanasia Story of Gaby Olthuis — Questions for Interview with Her Mother

[Hazel]

@Hazel I bumped onto this thread and read the book written by her mother. One thing I always wondered about was if she thought about cutting her auditory nerve as a last restort? Is this question asked during the interview?

I know there was an experiment where 40 percent went deaf and still had tinnitus but in the other 60 percent the tinnitus was gone.

At least she would have been ridden from her horrible hyperacusis.

Hey there! Interesting question. I do recall that it was one of the questions on our list (we solicited questions from the forum beforehand), but there were so many questions that I had to downside considerably. So in the end I only asked generally what treatments she tried or considered, and her mother did not mention this as being one. Having said that, I could definitely confirm with Joan; this one will go on my list of follow-up questions for her

I also wonder whether it would even be possible (in most countries) to find a doctor willing to perform this operation? I guess if you're desperate enough you could always find one, but the whole thing would become even more risky.

 

[gorzakus]

Hey there! Interesting question. I do recall that it was one of the questions on our list (we solicited questions from the forum beforehand), but there were so many questions that I had to downside considerably. So in the end I only asked generally what treatments she tried or considered, and her mother did not mention this as being one. Having said that, I could definitely confirm with Joan; this one will go on my list of follow-up questions for her

I also wonder whether it would even be possible (in most countries) to find a doctor willing to perform this operation? I guess if you're desperate enough you could always find one, but the whole thing would become even more risky.

Risky yes, but considering her choice to get euthanized there is no option that is worse in the end.
Did she have kids?

 

[Hazel]

Risky yes, but considering her choice to get euthanized there is no option that is worse in the end.
Did she have kids?

Yeah, indeed. She had two kids who were teenagers at the time. Joan did not want to discuss them during the interview.

 

[gorzakus]

Yeah, indeed. She had two kids who were teenagers at the time. Joan did not want to discuss them during the interview.

I understand, thanks for the information.
En bedankt om je tijd en moeite hier in te steken!

 

[Contrast]

@Hazel I bumped onto this thread and read the book written by her mother. One thing I always wondered about was if she thought about cutting her auditory nerve as a last restort? Is this question asked during the interview?

I know there was an experiment where 40 percent went deaf and still had tinnitus but in the other 60 percent the tinnitus was gone.

At least she would have been ridden from her horrible hyperacusis.

If there is a neurological version of hyperacusis defined as chronic ear fullness then I don't know if cutting the auditory nerve would solve it? Just hypothesizing.

 

[TheDanishGirl]

When is this interview due to be released?

Is there something we can do to help speed up the process? I am still really excited to hear / read this interview.

 

[Markku]

When is this interview due to be released?

Is there something we can do to help speed up the process? I am still really excited to hear / read this interview.

We haven't progressed with editing the Joan interview. The Podcast has taken much more time than we estimated and we have multiple other time sensitive projects going on that require some serious focus. @Hazel is also going to Milan for an ESIT meeting in a couple of weeks and that takes a lot of preparation; she will be giving two long talks there, and there will hopefully be some interviews with researchers / interesting people there, too.)

If there is a skilled Dutch-speaking video editor with proper equipment to handle 4K raw footage here who wants to volunteer for 5-10 hours on this project or however long it will take to edit, then that would surely help speed things up. Please feel welcome to send me a message in that case.

But as it stands now, I don't speak Dutch, and Hazel doesn't do video editing, so we need to do this simultaneously where Hazel directs me to cut, and it will be a painstakingly slow process where we both need to be available at the same time for an extended period of time.

Then there is the fact that final edited interview needs to be subtitled into English, since Joan felt more comfortable doing it in Dutch. The interview is over an hour long, and Hazel doesn't have subtitling experience (it's just not that you have to create a transcript which Hazel could do, but it's about syncing the subtitles to the video feed, line by line.)

Basically this is a very complex project, really demonstrates it perfectly how the actual filming on location is only a small part of the whole project before you can give out a link and let people watch it.

It will get done, by any means necessary. It will get promoted and shared online. I hope others will share it too, which usually doesn't happen no matter what we try to do. We didn't go through the planning and filming for nothing. Joan didn't generously accept to do the interview for nothing. But unfortunately we can't really promise a time frame now, we just don't know when we can get to this.

 

[Starthrower]

Wow @Markku that is a lot of work!!

Sometimes... the right timing just happens for the release of Joan's and Hazel's work.

Thanks for the update.

 

[TheDanishGirl]

I understand and thanks for the update @Markku

I wish I could help, but I don't know dutch and I have no video-editing skills.

 

[Hazel]

@TheDanishGirl and any other readers:

Wow, so we finally got a handle on the editing of this video. It was a true beast. I mean, we already knew it was going to be a montrous job to edit, considering Markku being the editor without speaking the language. And any one-hour interview is gruelling to edit.

But to add to the pain, we found so many issues with the quality of the footage, both audio and video, that we were about to give up multiple times. I cannot even begin to describe the issues that kept piling up, from broken microphones to shaky cameras to missing footage. You name it, it happened. But @Markku fixed 99% of it with his usual wizardry

Sooooo... after working non-stop for about 5 days, and when I say non-stop I mean literally from waking up to going to sleep, we have a final edit!

We still need Joan's final approval. And we need to get the subtitles done, which is no minor task either (particularly since it concerns translation to English while subtitling). This will still take a week or so, let's say two to be on the safe side, and then we're finally ready to publish. Only about 6 months after we started planning this project, LOL.

Stay tuned, folks...

 

[TheDanishGirl]

@TheDanishGirl and any other readers:

Wow, so we finally got a handle on the editing of this video. It was a true beast. I mean, we already knew it was going to be a montrous job to edit, considering Markku being the editor without speaking the language. And any one-hour interview is gruelling to edit.

But to add to the pain, we found so many issues with the quality of the footage, both audio and video, that we were about to give up multiple times. I cannot even begin to describe the issues that kept piling up, from broken microphones to shaky cameras to missing footage. You name it, it happened. But @Markku fixed 99% of it with his usual wizardry

Sooooo... after working non-stop for about 5 days, and when I say non-stop I mean literally from waking up to going to sleep, we have a final edit!

We still need Joan's final approval. And we need to get the subtitles done, which is no minor task either (particularly since it concerns translation to English while subtitling). This will still take a week or so, let's say two to be on the safe side, and then we're finally ready to publish. Only about 6 months after we started planning this project, LOL.

Stay tuned, folks...

You guys are the freaking best... TOP NOTCH PEOPLE you all are! Thank you so very much for all your hard work. I can't put into words how much I (and probably others) appreciate it.

 

[TheDanishGirl]

Is it getting released soon?

 

[Markku]

Is it getting released soon?

It's otherwise finished, but currently being subtitled into English by a guy we hired. He's saying he'll be done by Sunday.

But we probably will wait until TRI 2019 conference is over to release it, as next week is crazy, and @Hazel won't have time to do text descriptions, etc. until then. She's supposed to be flying to Taipei for the conference on Monday, and returning a week later.

This week she was at a TIN-ACT meeting in Berlin, but had to cut that short and go urgently to the UK, where her mom was on business trip. Her mom had a stroke and is currently in the hospital there, and Hazel is looking after her.

Let's send Hazel and her mom lots of good wishes and hugs.

 

[GregCA]

Let's send Hazel and her mom lots of good wishes and hugs.

@Hazel - We're thinking of you! Best wishes of recovery to your Mom!

 

[Hazel]

This thread will now be closed, as we have finally published the video!

Please watch and comment on the video here.