HERE are my views, which you may wish to consider for inclusion in Letters Page in response to Mel Stride's article on the Assisted Dying Bill.

Life is sacred, but we humans should have a degree of informed control and consent over our bodies, particularly with regard to enduring prolonged, untreatable pain caused by a worsening, life limiting condition.

Not all pain can be numbed, and extreme pain can dehumanise and brutalise an individual, thereby removing the last vestige of dignity in the “end” days.

I've lived with incurable, advanced ovarian cancer for over three years and am truly grateful for the operations, chemotherapy and maintenance treatments that have sustained me and extended my life, thus far.

The long term effect of aggressive chemotherapy has held back the cancer for a while, but it has also damaged my body, mind and spirit in the process.

Recurrence of the disease is typical, but the body becomes resistant to the drugs and their efficacy decreases as the toxicity outweighs the benefits of the cancer treatment.

Ultimately, despite the valiant efforts of oncologists, treatment options run out, and the patient is referred to Palliative Care.

I am not convinced that existing Palliative Care provision can manage the pain and the typical symptoms of actively dying with ovarian cancer, which include bowel blockage, fecal vomiting and draining of ascites (fluid) from the bloated stomach and being fed through the nose. Such invasive surgical procedures on a dying patient seem barbaric.

Dying with advanced ovarian cancer is not typically a gentle, graceful decline into death. It is undignified and terrifying.

As far as I can ascertain the main analgesic used is still the old fashioned remedy of liquid morphine (Oromorph), which I can assure you does not kill the pain.

During my worst nights of peripheral neuropathic pain caused by Paclitaxal, I have cried out loud for death to take me, because nothing could conquer the agony and I felt more like a wild Banshee, than a human.

I have been referred to the Palliative Care team (aka Enhanced Supportive Care) because of aggressive recurrence of the cancer.

The consultant is empathic, but I still have no clear idea of how my symptoms or pain will be managed when the time comes: what actually happens in a hospice, or, what actual support I would receive at home?

I must now consider “quality of life”, rather than the number of days in my life.

Filling out the online Advanced Care Plan is a difficult exercise when I am not absolutely clear about the delivery of specific available options

I fear the end result will be the same, whatever I choose, a messy unpleasant and undignified ending.

I hope that a legal and humane option might be open to me, if I can't face the long hard drawn-out descent into an unnecessarily painful death.

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