Unable to communicate, but desperate to live
One family is pleading for the right to end the life of their family member- a 51 year old woman who is brain damaged. They want her to be ‘allowed to die’- which would be sentencing her to death by starvation.
However, while the pro-assisted suicide lobby grows more convicted that death is what people in this state would have wanted, Nikki Kenward tells her story of being unable to move and communicate, but desperately wanting to live.
In 1990, Nikki Kenward became paralyzed from a severe strain of Guillain-Barre syndrome. She remained completely paralyzed for five months, and then learned to communicate by flickering her eyelashes. It took years for her to recover from the paralysis, and she has never recovered the use of her legs. She explains:
“At my worst, all of my muscles, including those that operate my lungs, were completely inert. I was in terrible pain throughout my body, I regularly endured violent physical abuse at the hands of one of my nurses, and I truly believed that I might die from the agony of the heartbreak I felt at the thought of never holding my one-year-old son again.”
It is becoming more dangerous for those who can not speak up for themselves, when pro-euthanasia groups believe that death is preferable. Nikki describes her own thoughts when she was unable to communicate:
“I didn’t care if this was all my life would ever be- forever lonely, frustrated and silent. I wanted to be here, living in whatever capacity I could manage, and I believe there are people lying in intensive care wards all over the country who feel exactly the same.”
For more of Nikki’s story see:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2019171/Dignitas-No-right-switch-human-life.html
