One Last Thing — How To Live With The End In Mind by Wendy Mitchell will be published in paperback on February 29.Author Wendy Mitchell has died years after documenting her brave battle with dementia, as she revealed her own refusal to eat or drink any more.
The paperback edition of her third book, One Last Thing: Living With The End In Mind, is due to be published next week. Wendy Mitchell was a NHS manager turned author, who wrote three critically acclaimed books about living with dementia She wrote extensively for the Mail about the pitfalls of living with the disease and she revealed how she used Post-it notes to help jog her memory.
Mitchell had become an outspoken voice in the case for assisted dying in the UK> Her own wish to go to Dignitas in Switzerland at the beginning of this year was foiled when she fell and broke both wrists, as well as damaged her neck. 'I've said for a long time that I don’t want to be an inpatient in a hospital, or a resident in a Care Home. It’s the wrong place for me; the loss of routine, familiar surroundings and people.
If you’re reading this, it means this has probably been posted by my daughters as I’ve sadly died. Sorry to break the news to you this way, but if I hadn’t, my inbox would eventually have been full of emails asking if I’m OK, which would have been hard for my daughters to answer… In the end I died simply by deciding not to eat or drink any more.
Sadly assisted dying isn’t an option in this country. With something that will affect 100% of the population, regardless of wealth, intelligence or ethnicity, it’s amazing how such little value is placed on the act of dying. For those that have read my book, One Last Thing, you will understand why I feel so strongly about assisted dying.
To have an option within your grasp enables you to relax and live life. In America, for example, some people are eligible for assisted dying. But when they receive the magic potion that would take them from this life, having it enables them to feel in control, and many choose life instead of death for much longer.
In the end, I wanted to choose the one option I said in my first book I would never choose – Dignitas, in Switzerland. After looking at every option and eventuality, this was the only place that would give me a dignified death. I’ve no fear of flying on my own now, as I would never ask my daughters or anyone else to fly with me, because of the complexities of the law when they flew back. But it also means my daughters can’t be there with me, holding my hands in my final moments.