Margaret's mother
My mother passed away in 2002 at age of 82.
She was an asthmatic from 6 months of age & never smoked. She suffered a collapsed lung in her early 50s and later in life she developed emphysema. Over the years she experienced a very gradual reduction in respiratory functioning and in her final two years she was admitted to a nursing home, as Dad was unable to care for her at home.
She was either in bed or on a chair beside her bed and I could take her out in a wheelchair to her own home for a few hours in the first year or so but then she was too weak and in bed most of the time. Mentally, Mum was alert. She was a Christian woman who always went to church and prayed and felt at peace with God & more than ready to die, with some dignity. She was a very dignified, intelligent lady with very little quality of life. She expressed to me on many occasions that she was ready for voluntary euthanasia and didn't want to suffer anymore. She would beg me to do something to end her life.
Watching her struggling to breathe in the last months of her life was horrendous and I would sadly explain to her it was illegal for me to do. My mother suffered considerably with no compassion from her doctor or anyone else to listen to her plea for voluntary euthanasia and for what? To stay 'alive' for a few months...
I do hope there are changes to these laws.
Margaret Blowes, March 2017