I am very lucky – my Mum who is nearly 82 is in good health and still has her wits about her (I can write all this as she is not computer literate!). She lives by herself with her cat, drives, cooks, goes out and has some great neighbours who make sure she is okay. I am also lucky that I won’t be obliged to look after her in her old age – I might do it, but won’t ‘have’ to. She is fortunate enough to be able to pay the whopping fees demanded by BUPA, and if she needs to go into a home, she can sell her house and go into private care. She lives in Jersey in the Channel Islands where a ‘living will’ does not exist … so while the going is good she rang me and my brother the other day to say that should she come down with senile dementia or cancer, no-one was to keep her going come hell or high water. She just wishes to be made as comfortable as possible and have the drugs increased that she might need. She had this written in her Will, although I did explain that Wills were normally read after death … that sort of passed her by!
My Father died of cancer ten years ago – when the prognostic went from a year or so to a few months, he said that there was no way he was willing to go into an hospice; he wished to live and die at home. And with the help of Macmillan we managed to keep him at home until the last couple of weeks – then just after Christmas he has an attack and was no longer capable of swallowing the morphine pills. He was rushed to hospital and put on a morphine pump and quickly ‘recovered’ from screaming in pain when he could no longer take morphine orally, to being totally spaced out and making us laugh in such tragic circumstances. These ‘highs’ didn’t last long and before I left to go back to France and my children, I had a meeting with the oncologist (a prat wearing a bow tie) and said that my Father would have wished to go speedily and not to suffer supplimentary pain and loss of dignity. I told him to up the morphine and stop the feeding, and if he wanted to be discharged from the responsibility, I was more than happy to sign any papers (there weren’t any). After I left, I’m afraid my Wicked Stepmother had a change of heart and he was actually kept ‘alive’ for 3 days more … however.
Last night on the BBC Panorama showed the programme on Kay Gilderdale who recently stood trial for the murder of her daughter Lynn, who had been bedridden for 15+ years with ME. Kay was recently cleared of murder. What horrified me was that when Lynn decided it was time to go, she actually had to inject herself with the morphine that eventually killed her in case her mother was charged with manslaughter. The ide of injecting yourself with a drug to end your days makes me shudder, but fortunately I am not in total physical breakdown as Lynn was and where those shots were relief. Or can you imagine sitting by watching your child take their own life – there, in front of you?
If you didn’t see the programme, there is an interview in the Telegraph with Jeremy Vine (of Panorama) which I will try and put a link to, as it will fill you in on the details if you didn’t see the programme.
Following that was the Dimbleby Lectures where the guest speaker was Terry Pratchett ‘Shaking Hands with Death’. Thanks to his reknown, people have taken notice of another very ugly problem – Alzheimer. He has a rare form of Alzheimer but seems totally ‘there’, but there is no cure at the moment – there is not even a drug to arrest the progression. So slowly but surely he is on the downward path – fighting every inch of the way, but knowing that in his heart he will eventually no longer be the articulate and bright man that he is today. The disease is already affecting him – he can no longer type, he buttons up his shirts wrongly, and last night he asked Tony Robinson to read his speech for him, as he knew he was no longer capable of doing so.
The message from him came over loud and clear – no way did he wish to descend into the hell of being senile, dribbling, incapable of knowing who was standing in front of him and therefore he wished to be able to die rather than suffer the horror and indignity of his demise – for himself and for the family left behind. He doesn’t believe in God so therefore he says he is breaking no religious dogma. The argument was that the law must be changed to deal with what is becoming an ever-increasing problem – we are living longer and the baby boomers are fast approaching old age … ‘care’ is sadly lacking, the NHS cannot deal with it and the numbers of old people are on the increase. Can we in all honestly ‘dump’ our old in homes and leave them to die, for that is what is happening at the moment.
Going to Switzerland to die is not the answer (well, for the moment it is) – people should be allowed to die at home, with their family and as comfortably as possible. The argument is put forward that there are unscrupulous relatives around that will bump off a family member in order to inherit – quite frankly, those people exist already. So an independant assessment should be set up with doctors, lawyers, whatever, that can decide if and when someone can legally die. This committee must not be controlled by Government, who already control too much of our lives.
Damn, my thought process has been interrupted. What do you think? Assisted dying or staying on the bitter end?
Will put the Telegraph link up later – but if you google Kay Gilderdale you will find it.
