Carmen Hall on euthanasia: I watched my dad and sister slowly die. Here's how I will vote

Kiwis will vote in a referendum on Act Party leader David Seymour's End of Life Choice Act this month. Photo / File

OPINION

I can't remember the exact number of days it took for my sister to die in front of our eyes but it was more than a week.

The best words I can use to describe her illness is a cross between Parkinsons and multiple sclerosis. She had been in a rest home for more than 15 years and could not walk, talk or eat.

Last year she deteriorated at an alarming rate following a fall. Our family was told there was no hope and a decision needed to be made as she had no quality of life. The decision in itself was heartbreaking but what followed was nothing short of traumatic.

All the feeding tubes and fluids were stopped and her pain medication was increased.

By the time I made it home she was unconscious. The staff at the rest home were nothing short of amazing and her children never left her side.

But watching someone you love die a slow death is not easy. Watching them suffer is unbearable. When I walked through the door I was knocked for six as her fragile body, now skin and bone, rasped and rattled and rasped again.

Every time she had a slight seizure the nurses would come and jab her again and tell us it was all ''normal'' when someone exited the world this way.

My brother, in a rare sign of emotion, bailed me up outside the room and whispered ''this is not right, I would not let my dog suffer like this''.

For my father, it was a slow process of about 10 years. He had cancer and battled it to the end.

A tall, strapping man, by the time he took his last breath he was emaciated. In his last days he was high on morphine which provided some mercy.

My mother was his main caregiver and I will never forget being on duty while she had a break and he needed to go for a pee.

He was bedridden and looked at me with anguish and said I didn't have to help him but wetting the bed would have been a greater indignity.

My dad was a proud man, a diamond in the rough, but he was denied the chance of a peaceful death. He had to endure an agonising fight with cancer that he had no chance of winning.

I feel strongly that if they had the choice both my father and sister would have opted for euthanasia.

That is why I am voting yes. For them.