A YOUNG woman has chosen to end her life with medical aid after fighting a rare and terminal neurological disease.
Annaliese Holland, 25, has been in debilitating pain since she was a child, enduring repeated hospital stays as doctors attempted to diagnose the disease which caused chronic pain, nausea and vomiting.
The 25-year-old from Adelaide, South Australia, has depended on an IV feeding tube for the past decade but has now decided to end her life with aid.
In Australia patients applying for assisted dying must be a permanent resident and have a condition expected to cause death within 12 months for neurodegenerative conditions, and 6 months for others.
To be approved patients must go through multiple safeguards, including assessments from two doctors to confirm legibility.
Once a person is deemed mentally competent they are given the option to either self-administer or have a doctor deliever the lethal substance.
While assisted dying is currently illegal in the UK, a bill proposed last year seeks to allow terminally ill adults to request and receive assistance to end their own lives under strict safeguards.
It wasn’t until Annaliese turned 18 and transitioned from a paediatric facility to an adult one was she then finally diagnosed with autoimmune autonomic ganglionopathy.
The neurological disease is rare; it damages the nerve that controls the heart rate, blood pressure, digestion and urination.
She said: “My bowel acts as if it’s blocked but there’s nothing actually blocking it. It’s just the nerves don’t work so, as gross as this is, my stools would back up so much that I would throw it up or drain out my tummy.
“I had feeding tubes placed in me and I was still vomiting and then we discovered that my stomach wasn’t emptying so I was put on TPN (IV feeding).”
Aged 22, Annaliese was told her condition was terminal – which led her to decide to “die on her own terms.”
She now has multi-organ failure and has survived sepsis 25 times.
The Australian was put on strong medications to help subside her symptoms but it caused her to develop serve osteoporosis – a condition causing bones to become weak and brittle.
Annaliese previously fractured her spine in four places, cracked her sternum in half and nearly crushed her heart and lungs.
She said: “I was so miserable, you can’t change it so you have to just deal with it really. Even though there’s beautiful moments in my days, they are exhausting and long. I’m in chronic debilitating pain.”
The young woman missed out on her 18th and 21st birthdays, spending them both bed-bound in the hospital.
Annaliese added: “All my friends, they’re having babies, getting engaged, married. Everyone’s life is moving and I’m just stuck. I’m not living. I’m surviving every day, which is tough.”
She now no longer wants to endure the pain and the disease which has left her feeling like she is, “walking on a field of landmines.”
After seeing herself in the mirror one day while hospitalised, it solidified her decision to “die on her own terms” with medical aid.
Annaliese said: “It wasn’t me and I was so exhausted,” she said. “Life for me now is getting up each day doing what I need to do medically, taking the painkillers, trying to get through the day, just to go to bed and do it all again.”
Her parents and sister are heartbroken at the idea with her mother, Amanda, always hoping for a miracle.
While Amanda knows what challenges her daughter faces, her father Patrick has watched Annaliese overcome every setback and believed she could get past the illness.
“Every time she goes to the hospital, she fights for her own life.
“The amount of times Annie has been in hospital and on her deathbed… to have to sit there and watch her go through it … but she is amazing,” said Patrick.
Annaliese revealed she told her father in the kitchen one day: “Dad I’ve had enough.”
The moment her father came to terms with her decision was when he watched as she was resuscitated by doctors.
She remembered saying: “Dad, please let me go. I will not hate you if you let me go.
“If this happens again, I don’t want anything. And please know that in my heart, you letting me go and saying no to treatment…I’m happy with and that’s what I want.”
She confessed to thinking it was weird to be happy: “It’s hard for me because I am in pain and then I am at peace, but then I put the pain onto my family.
“You have this battle in your head of not wanting to hurt them, so I will put some thought into how it will happen.”
It’s a relief for Annaliese; explaining that she won’t have to wake up everyday with anxiety about the pain-filled day ahead or feel the pain of starving to death when they can’t feed me anymore, or the horror of sepsis.
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Following the three week evaluation process Annaliese was approved for Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD).
She added: “I feel so lucky that I do have this choice. It’s one of the bravest things you could ever do, to say I want VAD. It’s not giving up. You’ve had enough and you fought bloody hard.”
YOU’RE NOT ALONE
EVERY 90 minutes in the UK a life is lost to suicide.
It doesn’t discriminate, touching the lives of people in every corner of society – from the homeless and unemployed to builders and doctors, reality stars and footballers.
It’s the biggest killer of people under the age of 35, more deadly than cancer and car crashes.
Yet it’s rarely spoken of, a taboo that threatens to continue its deadly rampage unless we all stop and take notice, now.
That is why The Sun launched the You’re Not Alone campaign.
The aim is that by sharing practical advice, raising awareness and breaking down the barriers people face when talking about their mental health, we can all do our bit to help save lives.
Let’s all vow to ask for help when we need it, and listen out for others… You’re Not Alone.
If you, or anyone you know, needs help dealing with mental health problems, the following organisations provide support: