Laura Perkins is still haunted by memories of her mum’s horrific final days, when she begged to die as tumours burst through her skin. Joanna had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer five years earlier, including a 17cm tumour which was successfully removed. But in early 2022, tests showed the cancer was back and had spread to her liver. At the same time, doctors discovered another primary cancer growing on her tongue.
Laura, 45, said: “Her team said it was just incredibly unlucky. My mum was never a smoker or a drinker, she had good dental health. It was a real blow because she was so diligent in all of her treatments and following doctors’ orders.” Joanna’s two teams of cancer specialists who had to decide which problem to treat first — liver cancer was the deadlier disease, but tongue cancer would be the most uncomfortable.
She underwent surgery to remove part of her tongue, then chemotherapy for the liver cancer. Laura, of Dulwich in south east London, said her mum endured the gruelling treatment with astonishing grace.
She wanted to live as long as possible so that her youngest grandson Teddy, now four, would remember her. But the treatment left her weak and the surgery affected her ability to speak, eyesight, hearing and balance.
Laura recalled: “All she could eat for months was soup with no bits. We would have to try and blend the soup. Even if it had a grain of salt in it, she would feel it on her throat.
“I still can’t eat soup for that reason, it reminds me of what my mum had to go through. She couldn’t even have a little bar of chocolate — everything was taken away from her.”
Eventually, Joanna decided she had endured enough and wanted to stop the treatment, despite knowing this would be fatal.
It was decided that the best course of action would be to have another week of radiotherapy to keep the mouth tumours at bay, while allowing the liver cancer to grow back “because liver cancer is the kinder of the two to die from”.
Lying down on the bed made Joanna feel as though she was going to choke and she wept as her head was strapped in place for each day of radiotherapy.
Laura said: “Those were my mum’s choices. What cancer do you want to die from? Both are horrible but mouth cancer is the most traumatising of the two.
“She didn’t want all this extra treatment, she wanted to die. But her only way out quicker would have been to stop eating.”
Joanna, of Bristol, asked her daughter about assisted dying. When Laura looked into it, she was surprised to find it was available in a number of jurisdictions including Australia, Canada and several US states — but not the UK.
As Joanna’s condition worsened, palliative care nurses were unable to fully relieve her suffering. Laura and her two sisters noticed a putrid smell coming from her room.
On one horrifying day, Laura held her mum and tried to comfort her as tumours broke through the skin of her neck.
“I would spray perfume under my nose before I would go in,” Laura said. “One morning, when she woke up I saw there was a lot of blood on her.
“The smell was basically rotten flesh and pus as the tumours were piercing through her neck. That was about a week before she died. She just rocked backwards and forwards, and said: ‘I want to go now, I want to go now.’”
Joanna died aged 72 in October, 2023. Laura, who now campaigns with Dignity in Dying, urged MPs to “vote on the bill in front of you” and not the unfounded claims of opponents.
She added: “Because we do not currently have access to end of life medication, my mum suffered inhumanely.
“Had assisted dying been legal here, knowing that she could make a choice to end her inevitable suffering when things became too much, would have given her so much comfort and peace of mind.
“Dying adults deserve the dignity of choice, and MPs have the power to give it to them by supporting this bill.”