His will, finally done. And not the balcony one, thank the stars.
Tuesday, the 8th of July at 0840, he quaffed the foul-tasting potion I mixed for him (legally, compassionately and socialistically given to us the Friday before) and in less than 2 minutes was unconscious. By my reckoning, he left his life by 0905, and was officially declared dead at 0950.
We had a rather sleepless and for him, physically painful (though full of morphine) night before, cuddling the whole time. He had said the day before, Monday, that he wanted to go the next morning.
I had been furious with him Monday morning, thinking he was going to just float till his mind was gone and we were stuck, a matter of days as he was going down so fast. He hadn't had zero quality of life for some time. It was in the high minuses.
He had no chance of recovery, only accelerated deterioration, and the newest surprise was extensive, rampantly spreading cancer, so he was finally given permission for VAD, Voluntary Assisted Dying. The people involved are wonderfully compassionate and helpful, but with the law in NSW not yet including quality of life (unlike the ACT), we were forced to treat his sudden, unexpected diagnosis of aggressive, high-grade, Non-Hodgkin lymphoma like a lottery win.
I never imagined that the choices, if VAD is granted, to include the precious gift of privacy. To be given the kit to do it orally, and self-administer, at home, which was exactly what I promised him--to die in my arms at home, instead of jumping off the balcony, which was his idea because he was above all, wanting me not to be implicated. I had totally expected to give him enough drugs to put him out (not enough to kill him because I never had access to such stuff) and then have to do what I've only seen in movies and don't know if it works, to kill him. Then I'd call the police, and then I'd testify that I did it and why. And then I'd cool my heels for the rest of my life in the slammer.
Instead, first thing Monday morning, I went to get the physical newspaper which has a tv guide that he always marked up for recording the week. I was furious because even the day before, he'd slipped so much in his mind and coordination, hitting a remote button so many times that I asked him if he'd like me to operate it, that I was seething/terrified/worried. I still made him breakfast and didn't say anything. Shortly after he finished eating, he said that he hadn't wanted to do it over the weekend because he thought it would cause me trouble--his dead body hanging around till Monday.
Instead, he said he wanted it to be Tues morning. I had previously asked him if he'd like to go instead of in bed (he needed to be sitting up because otherwise, the body wants to vomit the vile stuff up) in his chair in the living room looking out the window at the dawn coming up. He seemed to like that idea till I said, "I'll get you up at 4." He hated that, not that he slept, but. So I said, "What about sitting up in bed while I give you a blow job?"
And that's what we did, after I assured him I didn't expect him to perform, just enjoy. It's a three-step procedure. An hour at least before the ultimate act, anti-nausea meds must be taken. He asked for his and got them at 0640, and we cuddled more. Then a half hour before the final act, there's anti-anxiety meds in the kit. He said he didn't want them and they're not necessary.
But he did have a last request: that I thank for him, all involved including the "invisible ones", the VAD board that approved his request, for allowing his right to be exercised instead of forcing him to live in increasing pain and incapacity, ending it with his desperate solution.
So we did it, I mixing the stuff, and he taking it after I brought it in and we had a last, fervent and long kiss. That act seared my soul. You're supposed to have a chaser to get the taste out, though there must be great rush about the whole thing, since unconsciousness falls quickly.
I had a shot of Cointreau ready (they recommend strong alcohol) and the moment he finished the potion, I gave it to him while he was still shocked and grimacing from the unholy taste. He drank a mouthful and was still grimacing. "Can I have some water?" he said. "No," I said, thinking he wasn't supposed to or it would all come up, and in the next half breath. "The hell with it, have some water!" I gave him the bottle and he took a glug and handed it back. We're looking in each other's eyes and then his dropped shut like a broken venetian blind.
And in the next quarter second, his body jerked down out of the sitting position and I'm going "No, don't!" grabbing him and trying to pull up. I couldn’t budge him. And for the rest of my life, I'll kick myself about what he last heard. Me saying No! My logical self says he couldn't have. That he was out. That his last consciousness was us looking into each other's eyes after I, rather biblically, gave him the water he asked for. And that he knew I loved him.
These past few years have been doozies. I could have kissed his gp, who I saw the morning when we knew the drug pack would be delivered that afternoon and I'd be taught how to use it. I needed to know, for instance, how to ID death. The gp was invaluable, as he has been throughout. I thanked him and he let on that he knew I'd been in physical danger for some time (drugs have side-effects), and had tried to mitigate it with tweaks to R's complex regimen. I don't remember his exact words but the effect was, "Well, of course R is neurodivergent."
With everyone claiming to be, I never would have said that to anyone but this was a man who was only comfortable with his shits if they came at the same time every day, only one because one should be enough, of the right consistency, and followed by him having a shower to wash off because smearing your arse with paper is disgusting. Dinner had to be at 3:45, and if it looked like it would be a minute late, he was quite disturbed. Coming down suddenly with an illness that took over his life and laughed at him having any capacity, including feeling below his knees, disconcerted him more in many ways, than the physical pains and indignities. He hated being coddled/smothered/told what to do, yet no baby needs more than he did.
It's the aftermath now. I haven't been able to leave the flat for more than two hours for almost two years, except for the 3 days when I was hospitalised and they yanked my gall bladder and something else out, I never caught what, in two emergency ops. The nurses were like cups of tea. They kept saying, "Don't worry about him. You said your neighbours are taking care of him (they jumped in and were wonderful). Think of this as a holiday."
People here have overwhelmed me with kindness. I'm so lucky for that. Time and again I've been struck by how much a socialist system fosters empathy in a population. Throughout this tragedy, I've met unceasing care and downright goodness. R was treated with kindness and a genuine passion to help him, even though nature was stronger.
A man who ran up seven flights of stairs, just like that, could suddenly barely walk, and at the end could barely take a step. And the pain--a variation on that Jack Benny joke: Your money or your life? Hmmm. This choice was: pain or brain?
I was shoveling morphine into him like coal into a steamboat's maw. To no effect, except muddyheadedness, which he hated, as his brain was the only thing left that worked, and when it didn't, there was no point in carrying on. Indeed, it was that knife edge that was so terrifying.
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So, at last, he had the death he hadn’t dared hope for, a death as compassionate and loving and intimate as that you'd expect for your dog. An at-home affair, legal, with just the two of us in attendance, Death waiting politely outside the door. I’d researched heavily to know what to do and what to expect. I’d even learned how to tell if someone’s actually dead.
So when I could personally confirm, I left him and took a piece of necessary but despised equipment out of the flat and to the shared garage area where a kind neighbour asked after him, and my dam burst upon her.
“Why are you here?” she asked, shocked at my desertion.
He and I had always been so wedded to the verifiable that both of us were always When you die, the body left is no longer you. Not only that. I didn’t want to embed my last sight of him to be a lopsided grimace and not his beautiful loving smile. But her shock pricked me. I immediately went back up, shoved his legs over in the bed, and took his hand. His fingers wrapped around mine, just as they had on winter walks, walks we hadn’t been able to take for two years. It had been fifteen months already that I knew we would never be able to walk hand in hand again.
Then I felt his skin all over. It was still so very alive, pliable and warm between his legs, cool feet just as they have been since he contracted his weird, rare, nerve-munching disease. His face not only lost its grimace. Sometimes it seemed to smile, I know an illusion but a comforting one.
In the next five hours before he was bagged and taken away, his body underwent several visual changes but nothing I had read to expect, which was a hellish smell and a torrent of ooze--shit, half-liquified organs pouring from every orifice and the flesh itself. His organs were grossly distended and “friable”, something desirable in pastry-making but horrific biologically. His mouth was going to be a filth fountain. So I knew what to expect because I’d researched and had steeled myself. But the flood and fountain, and the scents horromemories are made of--they never came. And no rictus. His mouth softened and in the dull natural light of a cloudy early morn, his cheek twitched lightly as if he were watching a baby elephant.
Not that his body was passive. When I put my head to his chest, I could hear not so much a gurgle but a whirring worthy of a crew of bespoke workers fitting him out for an existence unreachable by research.
And the stench and phlutt? He emitted nothing and his skin smelt as in life--clean, fresh and snappy, like a freshly shelled pea,
When they rolled him into the body bag, he left a stripe of dark wetness where his upper to mid spine had been, for his back had “sweated” lying there. I don’t know if it was sweat. It smelt like nothing I’ve ever smelled before. The best “fresh sheets” scent wouldn’t be a touch on it. All perfumes are too heavy to compete. It was ethereality.
I took that sheet to bed with me that night, pressing the wet place to my face, and I actually slept. When I woke, mark and scent had flown.
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