Pat Koch Thaler, the sister of the late New York City Mayor Ed Koch, elected to take deadly drugs during a terminal cancer struggle, selecting November 16 as her death date. She was 92.

Thaler, who had been fighting kidney cancer for 22 years, told The New York Times a week before her death that after watching her mother die “in agony,” she decided to take a new approach.

“I have lived a very, very rich life, a very happy life, and I didn’t want to torture myself anymore,” Thaler, a former New York University dean, told the source. “I did what I could, and knowing that the law is on my side, I decided to take advantage.”

She is alluding to the New Jersey Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act, which entered into force in 2019. According to this bill, “mentally capable adults, with six months or less to live, can request a doctor’s prescription for medication that they could decide to take in their final days or weeks to end unbearable suffering and die peacefully.”

Thaler, a resident of Pompton Plains, New Jersey, told the Times she wanted to raise awareness for organizations that can give alternatives to prolonged agony and suffering during a medical crisis.

When she first received her cancer diagnosis, she believed that if she followed all the necessary steps, they would cure her. However, things did not go as planned. I tried every possible cure, some of which caused discomfort, but I persevered. However, I eventually realized that medical aid in dying would allow me to select my own time and go before I truly suffered.

So she decided to organize her own death: on November 16 at 11 a.m., Thaler drank apple juice laced with powdered medicine in her own house. She paid $900 for the drug and $6000 for end-of-life consultations from Compassionate Care Services, according to the publication.

Thaler died around 6 hours later.

According to the Times, she spent the previous week paying debts and preparing her burial.

“I do not believe in an afterlife,” Ms. Thaler stated. “I believe the body disintegrates, and whatever remains is the spirit—that, and the memories.”

One of the memories she wanted to share was of her late brother Ed, who served as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989 before dying of congestive heart failure in 2013 at the age of 88.

“He would often throw out an idea and ask me what I thought about it,” Thaler told the publication. “I told him my honest view. If I felt it was a poor idea, I would say so.

Koch also had his own unusual and unique way of announcing his demise. The New York Times published a video under his obituary that began with Ed gazing at the camera and asking, “Do you miss me?”