Kerre Woodham: I hope I know when it's my time to go

Kerre Woodham has achieved plenty in her life. Photo / Richard Robinson

Earlier this year I was working on the wireless when all of a sudden I was overcome with a terrible abdominal pain and carted off to hospital.

Most embarrassing and very dramatic and alarming for those who loved me. I went through a battery of tests and one of them showed a shadow on the kidney.

For those of us over 40, shadows are ominous. Shadows are scary. And a shadow on the kidney, according to Dr Google, meant I was pretty much stuffed if it turned out to be cancerous.

So the night before the definitive scan, in those dark hours of the early morning, I lay in bed and ran through an inventory of my life. Had I achieved everything I had ever wanted to achieve? What had I left undone?

And I came to the conclusion that there was nothing left for me to do. Oh, I'd love to write the seminal New Zealand novel, but that's never going to happen. I would love to have been fluent in three languages and a proficient swordswoman, but that was just an early exposure to spy novels.

I'd love to set up a foundation for underprivileged kids - and while that may happen, that's more about other people's lives than my own.

Ultimately, I decided, the one thing I really want to do before I pop off is to be a grandmother and that's a decision that's out of my hands.

So I was pretty comfortable - in theory - if I received the worst news.

The shadow turned out to be fine, just one of those things, but a checklist of where you're at in personal fulfilment is a useful exercise - especially when you're halfway through your life.

I don't believe I'm afraid of dying - although you don't really know, do you, until you get the news - and I don't value life at all costs.

Existing without conscious thought or being kept alive thanks to a cocktail of drugs and medical machinery just doesn't do it for me.

We come into this world knowing that one day we're going to leave it and if we suck the marrow out of life while we're here then surely that's all we can do in terms of controlling our destiny.

My partner and I hate the idea of living beyond our time. The thought of existing - not living - is anathema to us.

We've both said we'd rather be dead than mental or physical vegetables - and yet, when push comes to shove, I don't think I could kill my lovely man, despite the fact I know when he wouldn't want to be living.

I would love to know when my time was up so I could ensure I wasn't around longer than I needed to be, but who knows what fate has in store?

And asking someone else - be they a loved one or a medical professional - to do it for you seems a bit of a cop out.

It's a curly one and as the population ages, the issue of euthanasia will be one we all have to come to terms with.