English 2010 has changed the way I view writing and rhetorical analysis.

Forms of
writing that have never occurred to me are the digital, such as a MeMe. I have seen
them for years on the Internet and social media websites but I never knew how
much time and effort are put into making one.
Another aspect that has changed my writing is writing for the general public,
learning how to cite my work so that they will understand it, and not taking credit
for someone elses work.
Before this class I also didnt know that you needed to cite pictures that you
use in your work that is not your own. I will admit it was a struggle for me to
understand how to do it but now that I know, I will be using that from now on.
The tools this class has taught me to better understand rhetoric and that it
plays a role in our daily lives. Now when I look at billboards, see a MeMe, or read
someones status update online I will be able to better understand where they are
coming from.
The following is my best work through out this course.

Report
I read through this report again and made some corrections with grammar as well
as spelling. Doing work cited for reports comes easy to me because it is something I
was taught young and have done for years. However, citing an image is completely
different and to be honest, took me some time to understand how to do. I am glad
that you required us to provide images in our work and that I was able to learn that.
I think that this report could be really informative for people in the
community but in order to get it published in a newspaper, one would have to
change the work cited for those reading it to understand it.
I enjoyed learning about this new form of radiation. I am glad they are
building a cancer treatment center on the west side so those being treated wont
have to travel so far.

Jessica Brown
Jennifer Courtney
English 2010
Sep. 16th 2014

Elekta Versa HD, Changing the Way People Get Treatment for Cancer
Jordan Valley Medical Center is breaking new ground with a cancer
treatment center scheduled to open in the fall of 2015. This cancer treatment facility
will offer a new, more efficient, and time friendly alternative to radiation therapy
than we use today, and its called ElektraVersa HD (JVMC). Many of us dont know
the difference between Versa HD and traditional radiation therapy or the statics of
those who have to be treated, making this a hard subject to fully understand. Well,
Ive done all the work for you.

(Figure 1) In 2012 it was estimated that

1.6 million Americans would be
diagnosed with cancer. Out of the 1.6
million, 960,000 people would receive
Figure 1 The Need for Proton Therapy taken
from <www.provanasolutions.comcareers/text/javascript>

Radiation therapy to help treat their

cancer (The Need). The majorities of us

do not fall into this static and hopefully will never be on the receiving end of this,
making it hard for those not being treated to understand how radiation treatment
works.
Radiation targets tumors with different laser beams, disbursing small
amounts radiation into the cancer cells in hopes of killing them. This process takes,
depending on where the cancer is located, 20-45 minutes. Patients are also schedule
multiple sessions of radiation treatment because they cannot send large amounts of
radiation in a given area; this would kill a lot of the surrounding tissue/organs. It
also requires those being treated to sit very still and, most often then not, in
uncomfortable positions making it possible to target the area. Because radiation
treatment time is so lengthy, cancer centers are only able to treat a small number of
people in a single workday.
VersaHD is a new form of radiation treatment. Unlike other machines, this
one is capable of high precision beam shaping, treating a wide range of tumors
throughout the body, can treat complex cancers, and it is all done without damaging
the surrounding tissue or organs (Ford).
This quote taken from and article published in PR Newshire explains this
perfectly, "The majority of patients who receive standard radiotherapy will benefit
from the precision and speed of VersaHD," he [Leader] says. "However, many
patients have cancers that are located in very critical areas that demand an extra
level of tumor targeting precision, or lesions that require very high doses to reduce
the length of the treatment course. VersaHD is perfect for these complex cases by

virtue of its advanced beam-shaping, imaging and high dose rate technologies
(Elektra 3).
VersaHD can send a high dosage of radiation without damaging the
surrounding tissue/organs so the actual treatment time is cut in half, as well as how
many times the patient needs to be treated. This makes most treatments up to 10
minutes and those more complex cancers around 20 minutes long. One clinic in the
UK has reported that they see up to 60 patients per day and 20-25 new patients per
month. Now that they are able to fit more patients into there schedule they estimate
that they will have treated more than 600 patients since using VersaHD (Elekta).

So what does this mean for

people being treated in Utah?
(Figure 2) Once this Jordan
Valley Cancer Center is finished
we will be able to provide those
being treated a faster treatment
Figure 1 Jordan Valleys New Cancer Center taken from
<Http://www.hconews.com/articles/2014/07/30/jordan-valley-scancer-center-delivers-new-radiation-therapy>.>

time and more comfortably.

Even thought its the only

machine of its kind in Utah, Im sure it will catch on quickly and more centers will be
proved VersaHD. And if a center simply cannot afford this specific machine then
patients will still receive highly effective radiation therapy that has helped others in
their same situation.

Work Cited

"Elekta-VersaHD-cancer." Prnewswire.com. 13 Mar. 2014. Web. 15 Sept.

2014.

Ford, Omar. "Elekta Unveils Advanced Linear Accelerator, Versa HD."

Medical Device Daily 17.42 (2013): 1-6. Web.

JVMC to Add Cancer Center." The Enterprise 21 July 2014, Utah's

Business Journal sec.: 7. Web. 15 Sept. 2014.

"The Need for Proton Therapy." Http://pronovasolutions.com. 1 Jan. 2012.

Web. 1 Sep. 2014. <careers/text/javascript>.

MeMe
This Meme was designed for a social media sight such as facebook, MySpace or insta
gram. My group put this together after Alicia Marie Englert, a young women in Salt
Lake City, dumped her new born child in her neighbors trash can to get ride of it.
She didnt tell her parents she was pregnant and didnt want the child. Working in
this group was difficult because what I wanted to put on this Meme was more racy
than what my partner wanted to do. I wanted to put, New form of birth control? At
least recycle the child. Since I was the one to find most of the images, I waned my
partner in this group to feel like he contributed so he came up with this saying.
If it were just myself working on this alone I would have done my saying. I
think it makes the situation a little more humorous and not so serious as the one
shown.

Positions Paper
My introduction to this paper has been changed. I first started out naming
euthanasia, assisted suicide and Death with Dignity to be all the same meaning.
Through out this course I have study a lot on the Death wit Dignity act and come to
find out euthanasia has a really bad stigma attached to it. They are not the same act
because Euthanasia is when a doctor injects you with a deadly dose of medicine
with the intent to kill and Death with Dignity, also assisted suicide, are when the
patient is of sound mind and drinks the medicine themselves. I also proofread my
paper and made changes to errors. I also changed how I sited my research in this
paper as it was designed for a newspaper or magazine, not an academic paper. The
time that would be appropriate for this article to get published would be around an
election. I think I did a good job at giving my position on the matter and persuading
people to not think negativity about Death with Dignity.

What if you woke up

tomorrow with a terminal
illness that would take your
life in the most painful way
possible? Slowly it would
strip you of your motor
skills, confine you to your
bed, and very soon after you
could no longer
communicate. The days you
are limited to here on earth
you are robbed of your
independence. But what if
you had an option to die
with dignity? On your own terms, in your own home surrounded by your loved
ones? Would you take this less painful road if it were available to you? Id like to
shed some much-needed light on this touchy subject, Death with Dignity act, and try
to get you to understand; Death with Dignity isnt as bad as it sounds.
This topic has arisen lately due to a young woman, Brittany Maynard, who
publicly announced through YouTube she would be utilizing assisted suicide and
planned to do so on Nov. 1st, 2014. In an article published on CNN Brittany describes
her journey and what led her to this decision. On New Years day, 2014, she found
out that she had brain cancer. After a couple of surgeries to hopefully stop the
growth, Brittany found out that it only continued to grow and quickly became stage
4 brain cancer, giving her 6 months to live. After a lot of research and finding out
treatment wouldnt cure her, only prolong the inevitable; she decided she didnt
want to die from her illness. In her words, I [Brittany] considered passing away in
hospice care at my San Francisco Bay-area home. But even with palliative
medication, I could develop potentially morphine-resistant pain and suffer
personality changes and verbal, cognitive and motor loss of virtually any kind."

After more research Brittany discovered the Death with Dignity law, also
known as assisted suicide. She moved her family to Oregon, one of five states, where
it is legal to get assistance from a physician to end your life. Since making the
decision Brittany explains that she is relieved. She doesnt have to dread the pain
that was sure to take her life and that she will live the remainder of her days doing
things that she loves, traveling, being outdoors and enjoying life.
Of course since she went public with her plan there are people out there
trying to convince her that this decision is not the right one. Kara Tippets, who is
suffering from stage four-breast cancer, urges Brittany to not take her life. She
argues that dying from your illness doesnt have to painful and that Brittany is
ultimately robbing her family of supporting her until the end. Kara brings up
religion in her blog entry saying, More importantly, you will hear from my heart
that Jesus loves you. Brittany Maynard has not mentioned what she believes in so
who is to say that she believes in Jesus? Whatever Brittanys belief is, it shouldnt
matter that she has decided what is best for her, not what is in the best interest for
her family or for the religion she believes in.
Kara Tippets shares her thoughts about the doctors in Oregon who support
assisted suicide. She believes that they have broken their oath to first, do no harm.
Plenty of people, including myself, find no harm has been done in a situation such as
this. What about the rights to our own bodies? When we turn 18 we are no longer
bound to our parents decision making. Thousands of people diagnosed with cancer
decline any sort of treatment, would this fall in the same statement First do no
harm?
Assisted suicide happens often, even in states where it is illegal, because its
in cases were doctors believe nothing else can be done to save that persons life. In
the scholarly journal written by J Donald Boudreau and Margaret A Somerville they
bring up a case that is very similar to this topic at hand After a car accident some
people may be deemed as brain dead, also known as vegetable, this meaning they
have no brain function. It is then decided from family members or a spouse what
should be done with this said person. Should they keep them alive through feeding
tubes and a ventilator or should they pull the plug and let them die? In some cases
the brain dead person lives for weeks without any food or water. The medical term
for this is called terminal sedation and it is legal here in the United States. Both
assisted suicide and terminal sedation are there to help relieve people of their pain
but one case you have someone who is asking to receive this medicine and the other
will die from dehydration and starving.
Not anyone can ask for this prescription and its very hard to receive. You
must have a terminal illness and go through numerous steps to finally qualify.
Washington, Oregon, Montana and Vermont are the only states in America that
practice death with dignity. It is my belief that everyone should have a right to the
way they leave this earth, especially when its a slow, painful, debilitating illness. Set
aside your religious beliefs or what have you and question how you would feel given
those circumstances. Do you believe people in Utah should have this right as well?

Brittany Maynard Begged By Terminally Ill Cancer Patient To End Euthanasia Plans
Read." Www.inquisitr.com. Inquisitr, 11 Oct. 2014. Web. 12 Oct. 2014.
</1532886/brittany-maynard-begged-to-end-euthanasia-plans-by-terminally-illcancer-patient/>.

Boudreau, Donald J., and Margaret A Somerville. "Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: A
Physicians and Ethicists Perspectives." Http://content.ebscohost.com. Dovepress, 1
Apr. 2014. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.

Maynard, Brittany. "Maynard: My Right to Death with Dignity at 29." Www.cnn.com.

CNN, 14 Oct. 2014. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.
Image
https://www.flickr.com/photos/littlelovemonster/3025442574/in/photolist5BmbF1-5BgWpP-6XST63-8QM1jj-a2e4H4-a2e7Zt-a2e2xg-9h3un4-pripqq4zhHPL-73MoEF-oeqd5s-ovGTDL-oewv9s-hR897Z/
(Links to an external site.)

Evaluation Paper
I noticed when revising this paper that I did not mention what documentary I was
evaluation. So, I added a heading to my evaluation stating what the name of the film
was. I didnt feel that I needed to change much in this paper because I feel that I have
cited all the research properly and I am proud of this evaluation. I give both negative
and positive feedback of the film and at the end I explain why I enjoyed watching it. I
see this evaluation being on a webpage that is designed to critic movies.
Movie evaluation for the Documentary How to Die in Oregon
Roger are you ready? asked Sue Dessayer, a volunteer for an advocacy group
called Compassion and Choices. This group helps to assist those who have chosen to
end their life with the Death with Dignity act. Roger Sagner was the 343rd person to
utilize this law in the State of Oregon and in this documentary it shows his final
moments in this life, drinking down the medicine and being cautioned to drink it
slower. Before he is handed the concoction Sue asks him two questions:
Sue: Roger, you have the right to change your mind.
Roger: My mind is not changing.
Sue: Ok. And what will this medication do?
Roger: It will kill me and make me happy.
Sue then goes on the explain that after he drinks the medication it will take about
60-90 minutes to put him into a coma, from there it could take hours or seconds for
him to pass. Before he inhales the drink, Roger says some words to his friends and
family that have gathered to support his passing, Thank you all for being here. I
thank the wisdom of the voters of the state of Oregon for allowing me the honor of
doing myself in, at my own remission and solving my own problems, so thank you.
He reaches out, gulps the medication and lies down with his loved ones surrounding
him. In the last sense you see Roger take one last breath with a smile on his face.
Peter Richardson started production for this independent film in 2007 and it
deputed at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011, a brief bio and history of this film
can be found on the films webpage; Http://howtodieinoregon.com. Peter got
permission to film those who have made the difficult decision to use the Death with
Dignity act in the State of Oregon, a women in the state of Washington fighting for
the law to get passed and a man who had negative fed back for the law.
Cody Curtis, 54, was diagnosed with liver cancer in December of 2007. Her
diagnoses was grim and her doctor informed her they do not have a treatable
prognoses other than removing the mass and hoping it get rid of the cancer cells.
After her surgery and finding out that the mass spread too much to contain, she
decided to give up the fight to survive and enjoy the last remaining months she had
left with family and friends. After deciding to take her own life before life got too
unbearable to live, she said this I'd just as soon not die. But we're all going to die.
Nobody knows what's going to happen. Any of us could be hit by a bus tomorrow,
but everyone hopes for something clean and painless, so this is as close as I'm going

to come. You can find this quote and many others on www.imdb.com.
On the opposing side of this documentary there is a man named Randy
Strout. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in December 2006; they gave him 2-3
months to live. He went through a round of chemotherapy and after not seeing
positive results his doctor wanted to try a higher dose of chemo to see if that would
help. His insurance wouldnt pay for the treatment unless the results would add 5 or
more years on to his life. Not being able to grantee those results, his insurance
denied him the money to get treated. His insurance sent a follow up letter saying
they would pay for any palliative care, Hospice, or they would pay for him to kill
himself. Still wanting to fight for his life, and having negative feelings towards those
who chose Death with Dignity, he was upset. Randy decided to take this public and
his insurance agreed to pay for the chemotherapy. But, sadly, by this time it was too
late, the cancer and spread and Randy died 4 weeks later.
The last scene in the movie is of the camera looking into Cody Curtiss
bedroom window, you can see the shadows of her family, you can hear her and her
children singing, you are my sunshine. Her volunteer mixes her medicine and
brings it into the room, hands Cody the drink and leaves, giving her family their last
minutes alone with their mother/wife. She says her goodbyes, kisses and hugs her
family, drinks the medicine and lies down.
Peter Richardson does a wonderful job capturing all avenues of this law, the
good, the bad and the powerful movement this law has made. Although everyone
has their own opinion on the matter I believe it comes down to the individuals
wants and needs. We should have the rights on how we want to leave this world and
if suffering isnt your idea of leaving, then you should have the right to Death with
Dignity.