This is going to be a very heavy topic which may trigger bad memories for some, so if you are here to make the day go faster by griping about idiots in the office and things on social media please feel no onus to read it. It’s taken me a while to write this and I’m not altogether sure I should post it, but DiS has a community of people whose opinion and experience I’ve come to value beyond meal deals and I feel a real need to properly write this out to someone.
My mum has asked for help to kill herself. She’s battled cancer for almost a decade now, and although there’s been a slow deterioration and inevitable encroachment of drugs and fatigue she has remained independent and able to do most of the things she liked doing until this year. Over the last couple of months things have gone rapidly downhill and now she cannot get out of the house, needs an oxygen machine and is constantly dopey on the elephant grade stuff the doctors have her on now, which only dulls the edge of her constant pain.
I chose to move back in with her a few years ago once I could fully work from home. I can understand her mental torment because she’s always been someone who’s wanted to do everything herself, and now has to rely entirely on me and care workers to do the most basic things, she finds it demeaning beyond words. For the last few nights she’s woken me up with her buzzer trying to find some way out of the anxiety and pain which rob her of sleep, and all I can say is “Take more meds, and I’ll read to you for a bit”. Yesterday she told me she’s had enough and wants to end it as soon as possible.
Idk what to do. I’ve gone through Dignitas’s literature and the problem there isn’t just the cost or the difficulties getting her to the continent, it’s time - it’s a long, complicated process, deliberately so, that they warn takes about three months. She doesn’t have that long. I have thought about trying to persuade the GP to prescribe her some very heavy sleep medication, but the thought disgusts me and I’m sure he’d see right through me. I’m also very worried about this from a legal/medical perspective, like giving her something that only makes things worse for her, or what the coroner would say. I think she’s made a rational decision and I’d like to help her, but I’m equally worried that she’ll become so miserable that she’ll take all of the morphine she can lay her hands on and damn the consequences. She was pretty close to that last night.
Sorry about putting this on you mates, but I find it very difficult to put all of this into speech to the couple of people who know about this and wonder if anyone here has any kind of experience with this kind of thing who’s willing to talk about it.
