Summary

“Cold Feet” begins with author Cory Taylor describing her purchase of a euthanasia drug from China a few years ago. She explains that she stores it accompanied by a suicide note, occasioned by the fact that she was diagnosed in 2005 with stage-four melanoma. Though the disease is progressing, it does so slowly, and Taylor kept the disease from her family telling only her husband Shin the whole story, until 2014.

Taylor explains that her suicide note is an apology to her loved ones for choosing to leave life if her disease begins impairing her existence too greatly. Yet, she hesitates, “because what appears to be a clear-cut solution is anything but” (7). The law in Australia, where Taylor lives, prohibits her from taking the drug in front of anyone else, though emotional complications also lead her to hesitate for fear of traumatizing the person who...