MOTHER OF THREE SAYS FINAL GOODBYES TO HER CHILDREN
31-year-old Sandra from Merseyside is suffering from a rare form of cancer, and has decided to travel to Switzerland to end her life with help from the not-for-profit assisted suicide organisation that has been running since 1998. There have been only 90 or so recorded cases of leiomyosarcoma of bone since its discovery in 1965. It is a particularly aggressive illness, and the survival rate is estimated to be around two years.
“The pain is already unbearable,” said the mother of three, who will be ending her life with assisted suicide next week. “As the cancer grows, my bones will start to fracture, and I’ll have trouble breathing.”
Five months ago, Sandra underwent surgery for her condition, but it was unsuccessful. She has decided not to put herself or her family through the heartache of undergoing chemotherapy, which leiomyosarcoma is generally resistant to in any case. Her eldest child, Leila, aged 11, said, “Mummy is very brave. I will miss her.”
How could Sandra do that? Not even try? How could she voluntarily kill herself without trying every single other option first? Her children might think she’s brave now, but I bet they’ll resent her later.
If my mum had been in that situation, she’d have tried everything to stay alive. Acupuncture, crystals, religion, the lot.
Saying that, my mum did have options. She didn’t have to go out to a work party that evening. She didn’t have to leave the nightclub at 2:00 a.m. without her colleagues. She could have got a taxi home, instead of walking. She could have not been drunk. She could have looked where she was going. She could have avoided the subdural haematoma which killed her almost instantly. She abandoned us. Just as Sandra is doing with her kids.
I take my phone out of my pocket and call my dad.
“Sol. How goes it, kiddo?”
I walk out of the café towards the water. “Dad, can I come and stay at yours for a bit?”
“Sorry, love. Can you speak up a bit?”
“Can I stay with you, Dad?”
“Oh, listen. Normally, I’d say yeah, right? But, thing is, Reveka’s on strike. She’s refusing to make the bed or cook. Bit of a bomb site up here. How abouts I come and stay at yours for a few days? Been feeling a bit under the weather lately, anyway. Sea air’d do me good, I reckon. Be nice to see your neck of the woods again.”
“Just you, then? No Reveka?”
“Just me, pup. That okay?”
I cry and say yes. Yes, please. Come as soon as you can.
32
“Got my disability money,” says Dad, edging down the stairs. “How about we go down the pub? We could take Cola. What do you say, Hokey Cokey?”
Cola is asleep. We already went for a walk today.
My dad reaches the bottom step and pokes the dog with his foot. “Come on, boy. Can’t get past you when you’re lying there, can I, you big lug?”
I’ve often wondered why my dad won’t get a dog. It’d do him good to have a companion other than one of his carers. One that he could look after, instead of vice versa.
“How’s your back, Dad?” I ask, sliding Cola along the carpet to make room for my dad’s feet.
“Oh, you know,” he says. “Totally annihilated.”
We go into the kitchen, and I grab the dirty cups and plates off the counter and put them in the sink.
“Come on then, Sol. What do you say? It’ll be dinnertime soon if we don’t get a wriggle on. Couple of swifties?”
“Fine,” I relent, “but we’ll eat out. I can’t be bothered to cook when we get back.”
“Right you are,” says my dad, rubbing his hands together. “Fish and chips it is.”
I grab my jacket and scarf, and we leave the house. It’s surprisingly balmy for a November evening, but the weather can change rapidly here. We make our way slowly down the hill towards town.
“This is the life, isn’t it, eh?” wheezes Dad. “Fresh air. Seagulls. Does you good being in a place like this. No wonder you look so healthy, kid.”
I bite my lip and point out some local landmarks: art gallery, maritime museum, plaque commemorating a visit by Charles Darwin.
“Very nice,” Dad says. “Very nice indeed. Hang on a mo. The pharmacy is still open. I’ll just nip in for my meds.”
We go into the pharmacy, and an old-fashioned bell rings above the door. Dad makes a beeline for the dispensary at the back of the shop. He certainly doesn’t fake his pain, but I can’t help noticing that he’s hobbling more than usual now that he’s surrounded by medication. He takes a slip of green paper out of his pocket and talks to the pharmacist.
I stay by the door, looking at the boxes and bottles on the shelves beside me. I wonder how you’d go about organising the products in a place like this. Alphabetical order? Heads, shoulders, knees, and toes? By the looks of it, they’ve squeezed stuff in wherever it fits. For example, beside a packet of suppositories, there’s a First Response pregnancy test.
I steal a look at my dad. He’s making a fuss about having to sign the back of the prescription, as if he hasn’t had to do that a million times before. The pharmacist is patiently pointing out the line he needs to put his signature on, perhaps wondering if the years spent at university have all been a bit of an anticlimax.
As nonchalantly as possible, I pick up the pregnancy test and walk over to the counter at the front of the shop. A gingerhaired girl, sixteen at the most, takes the box and scans the barcode. “Chocolate for a pound?”
“No thanks,” I reply, wondering if she offers this to everyone or if I’m getting special treatment because I might be pregnant. I look over at my dad, then take a lipsalve from a plastic jar and give that to the girl too. She rings it through the till,
