Seeing my fit and active mum felled by a severe stroke was heartbreaking: a powerhouse of energy and joie de vivre reduced to a life of dependency which she loathed. Accompanying her to Switzerland when she chose an assisted death over a life of disability and confinement was sad beyond imagining.
To then be actively investigated for two years by the police for assisting a suicide was nothing short of a nightmare.
So when broadcaster and campaigner Esther Rantzen – who is terminally ill – pleaded with MPs to attend a Westminster debate on assisted dying earlier this week, she spoke for my mum, for me, and for all the people unlucky enough to have been sucked into the cruel anachronism that is this country’s law on assisted dying. (It is illegal in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.)
My mum, Janet Appleyard, was 81 and fit as a fiddle, waiting for the bus to a dance class when she collapsed in May 2019 after what was later revealed to have been a severe stroke. She lost some sight, a lot of her speech and was paralysed down her right side, meaning she was confined to a chair/wheelchair/electric bed and had to be cared for by others. For someone as positive and powerful as Mum had always been, this diminishment seemed especially cruel.
Supported by carers, physiotherapists and speech therapists, Mum worked hard to overcome her disabilities but still, she would tell us, tearfully, that she felt “useless”. She said she wished the stroke had killed her.
Mum often mentioned wanting to go to Dignitas to die, but my sister and I urged her to wait a little longer and see what improvements she might make. We hoped Mum would come to accept her predicament and live in peace with her disabilities.
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