How do you choose life when it hurts more than death?

I’ve browsed this site on numerous occasions and it is a comfort to realize that I am not the only person out there that feels like I do.  I am almost 39 y o, married, I have 5 children of my own (whom I do not have custody of which is a long story) and 2 step sons.  I love my kids, my husband, my family.  I am not what you would call “depressed” as much as “desperate”.  I am a homemaker (which is a nice way of saying I am unemployed and unemployable, again, another long story) and our family is subsisting off of my husband’s meager income.  Because of the single income we cannot afford health insurance, and because that income is $38 dollars MORE than what qualifies us for free healthcare or sliding fee scale care I am stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I was diagnosed over a year ago with GERD after having symptoms off and on for years prior to that so I couldn’t honestly say how long I have had this.  While I know that GERD is not necessarily considered a major health risk, I also have esophageal spasms to go along with it and I suspect I am developing Barrett’s Esophagus (precursor to esophageal cancer which kills you slowly over a five year period), however due to lack of insurance, lack of financial means, and lack of assistance from any direction I have no way to determine precisely what is going on with my health because I can’t get the tests run that I need to have done.

If you have never had an esophageal spasm, imagine feeling like your heart is going to pound out of your chest, your throat starts to constrict (imagine that you have swallowed a lump of unchewed food and it has lodged in your throat about half-way down) your extremities get numb and tingly, you feel like you cannot breathe, your vision blurs in and out, and for all intents and purposes you feel like you are having a heart attack only there is nothing that you can do to stop that sensation from continuing for hours, possibly days at a time.  This is what I have lived with for the past few years and it’s maddening because I’ve got no way to resolve feeling this way.

I don’t want to hurt my family by committing suicide but I am literally at my wits end with this disease.  I have no one that takes me seriously when I try to explain how this makes me feel to live like this.  I’ve watched numerous relatives suffer and waste away from cancers of varying sorts (hence my suspicions that I too am developing some kind of cancer because the odds are stacked against me) and I do not want to go like that, nor do I want my family members to witness that wasting away because it is heartwrenching to see someone you love fade away to nothing before your eyes and to not be able to ease that suffering.

I won’t lie and say that suicide doesn’t scare the snot out of me, the thought of dying scares me spitless, the thought of DEATH itself does not, it is the process by which we get to that point and any possible pain that derives from the process that terrifies me.  Once you die, you are gone beyond the pain and suffering, the act of dying itself is the bridge which we all must cross for no one is immortal.  I would love it if there was some kind of legislation put into place that people who are suffering from painful and debilitating diseases such as cancer, with no hope of recovery, are allowed to be assisted in a humane death.  After all, animals who are dying or are unwanted are euthanized humanely every day, yet there is nothing in place for HUMANS except in cases of death sentences for criminals which in my opinion, if they have committed crimes heinous enough to warrant execution they should not be given a relatively painless death.  Why do criminals deserve the right to die painlessly yet cancer sufferers or terminally ill people are refused the right to a dignified and painless death of THEIR choosing?

I digress, however, I am here looking for advice, information, or suggestions on how to either resolve the problem of my life, or my death.  I do not want to proceed in a manner which will permanently scar my family emotionally or psychologically, I don’t want them to feel like they are at fault for anything, I also do not want them to feel guilt or shame over me.  I know I am walking a very fine line here.