Bucket list complete, 29-year-old cancer patient puts off ending life

Lindsay Deutsch

USA TODAY Network

Brittany Maynard, 29, who is terminally ill, has put off plans to take her own life under Oregon's death with dignity law.

Brittany Maynard, the 29-year-old woman with terminal cancer who made public plans to end her life and gained a following online through completing her "bucket list," says she no longer plans to die Saturday.

"I still feel good enough and I still have enough joy and I still laugh and smile with my family and friends enough that it doesn't seem like the right time right now," Maynard says in a tearful new video posted Wednesday on her website, The Brittany Fund.

Death-with-dignity advocate Brittany Maynard and husband Dan Diaz at their wedding. Maynard, who planned to die Saturday, has decided it is "not the right time" to die through doctor-assisted suicide.

"It will come because I feel myself getting sicker. It's happening each week," she says.

Maynard was diagnosed with a stage 4 malignant brain tumor in April. She moved from California to Oregon, where she can legally kill herself with medication. Her plans had been to die Saturday, two days after her husband's birthday on Oct. 30.

Sharing her decision to die online in a video that gained more than 8.8 million views, Maynard has become a public figure in the debate over "dying with dignity." She is a spokeswoman for Compassion & Choices, which advocates for end-of-life choice.

"Since January first of my diagnosis, health-wise things have been getting worse... the worst thing that happens to me is I wait too long because I'm trying to seize each day and I lose my autonomy," she continues in the video.

Brittany Maynard and her husband Dan Diaz pose at the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. It was the last thing on their bucket list.

Contributing: Jolie Lee

Follow @lindsdee on Twitter.

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