My dad got sick with ALS, and it took 7 years for him to die. The first 3, he could still do most stuff, but with limitations, but the last 4 years were horrible. He became entirely paralyzed eventually except for his head. And then even his head was paralyzed. He could only breathe with a machine, and towards the end, couldn't even talk. He was absolutely miserable, and it dramatically changed my parents' relationship. They were always very in love, each others' best friends, very affectionate. But my mom was his caretaker and after years of having to scratch his face every time he had an itch, hoist him onto the toilet to shit, and countless other things, and his accompanying anxiety about it, she grew to resent him. And he knew that, and it crushed him. Before it got that bad, but after it got really bad, he broke down one time when I was visiting (I was the only one who didn't start to treat him as an annoying invalid because I live far away so I only saw him sometimes), and told me he wished he had been hit by a bus, that he is literally in hell, every moment of every day is horrible, and he just wanted to die. I am almost positive he then was going to ask me if I could kill him, but then didn't. He started to say he wanted to ask me for something, but then said nevermind and just cried. He felt he had no dignity, no joy, only suffering, and worst of all for him, was that he didn't want to make our lives harder, and he didn't want us to remember him as the pathetic, sick, miserable burden that he had become, but as the healthy father, husband, friend, and provider that he always was before.
Before he got really sick, he told us that if he had to be kept alive with a breathing machine, that he didn't want to live and we should let him go. But then he got inspired by some famous guy who had ALS who lived for 10 years, most of it fully paralyzed and with a breathing machine, and during that time he started charities and lived his life and was pretty happy. It didn't work out that way with my dad, his personality was such that being helpless like that did not work for him. It was confusing because once it got that bad, he wouldn't say we should let him die, and my mom was stubbornly hanging on and wouldn't have let it happen anyway. The whole ordeal ruined the last 7 years of his life, right when he was finally able to retire and h and my mom were going to do all the stuff they'd always wanted to do. And it caused huge amounts of pain in the rest of us... guilt, shame, grief, anger, the whole spectrum.
The story was to illustrate how painful it can be for everyone when someone is not able to die in dignity. In my dad's case, he didn't actually seek euthanasia, though I know he wanted to. But if he HAD asked me to kill him, and I could have actually done that, and if I actually HAD done it, I could have gone to jail for murder. And if he had killed himself, his life insurance wouldn't have worked (I think that's how it works anyway). But, truly, had he been comfortable with seeking euthanasia once it got to where he had no quality of life, it would have saved all of us so much pain, especially he and my mom. There wouldn't have been all that time for all the resentment and anger to build up. I wouldn't, even today, have a hard time recalling my dad as he was before he was a quadriplegic invalid who hated his life.