Blog
359 — Honouring Margaret and Our Wedding Vows
Making
Sure Margaret Could Die
Written 12
September 2026
Covid
lockdowns had started when Margaret had her 70th birthday on 29
March 2020. Cafés and restaurants were closed, but Audrey had a caravan and
offered coffee and cake beside Glenelg Beach. This photo shows Margaret and her
then best friend, Ann Ryan, drooling over the chocolate cake.
* * *
At about 3.00 am on a
Tuesday in August 2023, I had to make a terrible choice.
Margaret was still alive
because the machines would not let her body die.
The doctors said there was
no hope; there was nothing more they could do.
Did I want the machines to
keep Margaret alive? They could keep her body going, but the pain would never
go away and she would never be able to really live again.
What did I want to do?
I gave the order.
Turn off the machines.
Let my wife die in peace.
Margaret was dead by 3.16.
I had honoured my wedding
vows.
I wished I was dead, not
her.
* * *
In an earlier blog, I
wrote about the marriage vows that no one ever heard Margaret and me make.
What we promised each
other were standard promises really, but with the difference that we never deviated
from them – not once.
I promised Margaret, I would
never leave her. She promised me she would
never leave me. Now Margaret was not leaving
me but she was dying. To keep my
promise, I had to help her die.
In another blog, I wrote
about the agreement I reached with God during my open-heart surgery.
God agreed to let me keep living.
I was permitted to be
there and to support Margaret throughout the terrible events that were about to
happen.
I accepted that my gift of
additional life would be a life of great hardship.
The journey from that
open-heart surgery to Margaret's death should have been impossible, but I was
determined to honour my wedding vows.
And I did.
Walk with me for part of
that journey.
* * *
Margaret
on 22 January 2023. In November 2022, the doctors thought Margaret would be
dead in three months at the latest.
Immunotherapy
was available, but at a cost we could not pay. When the oncologist persuaded
the drug company to provide it free of charge, we were overjoyed.
By this
date Margaret had received three immunotherapy treatments. Although she was so
ill and so thin, she never lost her sense of humour. The T-shirt says “I am a
Nurse. I stab people and I know Things”.
* * *
Margaret
wore the same T-shirt for her fourth immunotherapy treatment on 24 January
2023. The treatment had to be stopped after the seventh session on 28 March
2023. The immunotherapy caused terrible diarrhoea, and her bowels were in
danger of exploding.
* * *
Shortly after the
immunotherapy was stopped, Margaret's legs began to swell up like tree trunks.
Soon they began to weep fluid; usually, but not always, the fluid was clear
rather than blood. I became expert at changing the bandages on her legs as they
quickly became saturated.
* * *
Margaret
in A & E at Ashford Hospital on 19 June 2023. Her legs were in a terrible
state. I did not know what to do that day except keep trying to get medical
help. On this occasion, Margaret nearly died from atrial fibrillation, but
there was “no room at the inn”. When I refused to take her anywhere else,
Margaret was eventually admitted.
* * *
Margaret's
left leg on 25 June 2023. There had been a slight improvement in her legs by
that date, but they still wept continuously and looked even worse in life than
they do in this photograph. My sense of smell had long since gone. I could no
longer smell her legs rotting.
* * *
Margaret was taken by
ambulance to the Royal Adelaide Hospital on Friday 7 July 2023. Her death was
unstoppable. I reluctantly left her in the Cancer Ward; it was well after
midnight on the Saturday.
* * *
On Monday 10 July, I held
Margaret's hand as pain tried to destroy her body. She rated the pain as 50 out
of 10. I thought she was understating it. I was convinced she would die in my
arms.
But Margaret did not die
that day.
* * *
The hospital discussions
all centred on how and where Margaret preferred to die.
Margaret had been born at
Calvary Hospital, North Adelaide.
She had trained as a nurse
at Calvary Hospital, and Calvary had a world-class hospice: the Mary Potter
Hospice.
* * *
Margaret insisted she
would die at Calvary Hospital.
* * *
On Wednesday 12 July,
Margaret was taken by ambulance to the Mary Potter Hospice.
She was supposed to die
there. She did not.
Scans taken on Monday 17
July revealed the impossible.
Margaret's cancer had
completely vanished.
Margaret immediately
started getting better.
* * *
The hospital discussions
now centred on where Margaret wanted to go for her rehabilitation.
I drove Margaret to
Griffith Rehabilitation Hospital on Sunday 6 August 2023.
* * *
By Wednesday 16 August,
Griffith Rehabilitation Hospital had done all it could.
Margaret was discharged;
she was fit enough to go home.
I drove her home.
We no longer needed
ambulances to transport her anywhere.
* * *
For five days we were a
couple who had a future.
I started cooking proper meals
again. Margaret started to eat again –
not much, but she resumed eating. We even
talked about having a holiday in South Australia’s Riverland.
On the Sunday I discovered
a phone number for the volunteers who had made the quilt Margaret had been
given when she entered Mary Potter.
Margaret rang the number. The
woman who made her quilt was overseas but Margaret could call her in three
weeks when she got home.
Later, I thought being granted
those five days was so cruel. I wondered
why we had been allowed to believe we could have a future together.
But I was wrong. The five days were a huge, completely unexpected
blessing.
For five days we were able
to live like normal people.
* * *
How could we know the five
days were not a new beginning but the end?
* * *
On the morning of Monday
21 August, I could barely rouse Margaret as she lay in bed. I assumed it was
probably the painkillers, and drove her to see one of her doctors. The doctor
wanted to hospitalise her immediately. Ashford Hospital said admission could
happen, but not before 4.00 pm that day.
When Margaret continued to
deteriorate, I rang an ambulance.
The ambulance crew was
wonderful, but they could not find any hospital that could see Margaret.
We waited in the ambulance
outside Ashford for three hours, desperately hoping for a miracle.
There was no miracle.
From 4.30 pm until 6.30
pm, Margaret lay on a trolley in A & E at Ashford Hospital, until finally one
of the overworked doctors was able to see her.
* * *
I knew by then it was too
late.
* * *
I was asked the
unavoidable question in the Intensive Care Unit at about 3.00 am on Tuesday 22
August 2023.
I had asked Margaret what
she wanted me to do if she ever arrived at this terrible place. Her wishes had
been unmistakeable. Unless there was a prospect of her being able to live a
relatively normal life, I was not to keep her “alive” — not under any circumstances.
I wept as I told the
doctors to turn off the machines.
The Intensive Care Unit
filled with silence. Someone wrote notes.
I held Margaret as the
monitor registered the time: 3.16 am.
Margaret had flat-lined.
My wonderful Margaret was dead.
I have never stopped
missing her.
* * *
Margaret
and me in happier times — the Dalton Highway, Alaska, on Wednesday 7 September
2016.
* * *
A Tearful and Heartfelt
Farewell
At 10.00 pm in Adelaide on
Friday 11 September 2026 — last night, as I write this — my wonderful friend
David Joseph Johnson died.
Dave was diagnosed with
oesophageal cancer in 2015. He had surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and
was declared cured.
A few months after being
“cured”, the cancer came back in Dave's lung. He had radiotherapy and was once
again declared cured.
In January 2023, while
Margaret was having her immunotherapy, the cancer returned on the left side of
Dave's neck – right next to his carotid artery, making surgery impossible.
Margaret and I discussed whether there was anything we could do to help him,
but reluctantly we knew there was nothing.
Too many terrible things were happening in our own lives.
Dave moved into the spare
room in my home shortly after Margaret died, and his friendship enabled me to
crawl back into the world most people live in most of the time. Last night, cancer finally ended
his heroic battle to live.
I kept my promise to Margaret.
Dave gave me so much support and friendship when
very few did. He kept the promise to me he never told me he had made.
You have not yet been gone
24 hours, Dave, and I miss you so much already. I especially miss your wisdom, your
advice and your laughter.
Comments
Post a Comment