VICKY: LEGALISE MERCY KILLING
CervicalCheck campaigner wants the choice of ending her life when time comes
VICKY PHELAN is in favour of euthanasia in Ireland and would avail of it herself if the pain from her illness became unbearable.
The 45-year-old cervical cancer campaigner also says she’s in favour
of euthanasia for terminal patients in this State if they want it.
Speaking to the Irish Mail on Sunday, the mother-of-two also revealed she accepts that ‘realistically’ she has no more than two years left to live – but hopes to make it to five years because she would like to see her young son reach his teens.
In a searingly honest conversation, Vicky admits she has already made funeral arrangements for a secular ceremony with strict instructions for no priest to attend the event which is to be a ‘celebration’ of her life.
She also candidly discusses being unable to enjoy a sex life as a result of her illness and explains why she will never divorce her husband even though they separated two years ago.
Opening up for the first time about her thoughts on euthanasia, Vicky tells the MoS: ‘I would be pro euthanasia, definitely. I would hate to be in a position where I was in a lot of pain or lingering, as can happen a lot, that people are waiting for four or five days for somebody to die.
‘It’s terrible for the patient. It’s terrible for the family having to sit and watch their loved one [dying in pain]. It’s not a nice sight to see people when they’re dying.’
Admitting she has ultimately decided against travelling to another EU destination where euthanasia is legal, Vicky explains: ‘I have thought about it quite a lot, but the problem is because it’s not legal in this country I’d have to go
‘It’s not a nice sight to see people when they’re dying’
outside the country to do it.
‘Then you’re getting into a situation where if you tell members of your family and you bring them with you, are they going to be prosecuted when they come back into Ireland for assisting you?
‘And then I was thinking, “That would be fine for me, but if and when it happened, and I died in whatever country that they allow it to happen, my family still have to bring back my remains and it would make it too difficult for my family.” I couldn’t do it to them.’
Pet animals are treated better than humans with regards to death, she says.
MS sufferer Marie Fleming failed in her right-to-die Supreme Court case in 2013, and Vicky’s comments could put the issue of assisted dying on the political agenda.
A recent ruling in New Zealand put euthanasia to a public vote in that country.
Vicky says: ‘I think when your time has come – especially when you’re at a point, particularly like this with terminal cancer, and you’re in the last week or two of your life and you know there’s no coming back – why don’t they just put you out of your misery?
‘If it was legal in this country I’d be doing it, I can tell you.’
Last year the Limerick woman made a landmark €2.5m settlement with a US laboratory in the High Court over the alleged misreading of her cervical cancer smear.
Her refusal to stay silent brought the scandal around the State’s CervicalCheck programme to light, with scores more cases uncovered, culminating in an apology from the
Taoiseach in the Dáil. The tireless campaigner is taking the experimental drug pembrolizumab (pembro), which she successfully campaigned to the HSE to make available to all women in Ireland with cervical cancer.
Aware of the fact that the cancer immunotherapy drug is not going to cure her, Vicky said she is ‘absolutely’ living on borrowed time and now believes she only has a short time left to live. ‘Ideally, I’d love five years, but realistically I would say two years. And no more than two. That’s it,’ she says.
The hardest part of dying is undoubtedly leaving behind her two young children, eight-year-old Darragh and Amelia, 14.
‘That is for me the biggest thing – it’s the kids. That’s why I say I’d love to get five years because then my son would be in double digits at that point and a teenager, and I feel like he would’ve gotten a good start in life,’ she says.
‘But then I look at Stephen Teap, who does a lot of campaigning with me, and his kids were only four and two when their mother died. So, I’m very grateful that I’m still here for mine. At the same time, what you’re always hoping for with this disease is a cure. I’m realistic, I’m not pessimistic. There are always new drugs coming on stream.
‘So, I’ve always said, if something came out, I’d try to keep myself alive long enough to get on something. And you just don’t know. You never know.’
Always one step ahead, Vicky reveals she has already arranged her own funeral. Asked if she has picked songs for the service, she jokes: ‘I’ll be having a concert, I have more than one song! I’ll probably be leaving a playlist. I would rather see it as a celebration than something morbid. And it won’t be in a church, that’s for sure.’
She does not want a priest present at the ceremony, but adds: ‘At the same time, I’m conscious of the fact that some of my family would probably like to have something like that – and that’s fine if they do afterwards. They can have some kind of memorial service in a church. But, for me, no, I certainly don’t want it. And I want to be cremated, I don’t want to be buried.
‘I know exactly what I want and
I’ll be leaving my wishes with my solicitor, and my family. I’ll leave them do whatever they want to do. I’ll be gone at that point so…’
Ever since she was involved in a car crash in her early 20s – that killed her then-French boyfriend and left her in a coma with a shattered pelvis – Vicky rejected any relationship she had with God.
‘I lost my faith after my car accident 25 years ago. That was when I really threw it all away. I just couldn’t understand why something like that had happened to us. And I never got it back really, to be honest,’ she says.
She doesn’t believe in heaven and hell either. ‘I do believe that the people that you love stay with you in some way. I don’t know whether that’s energy or… I do think there’s some kind of a spiritual side to it. But no, not a God anyway. Definitely not, no.’
Living in the moment is something Vicky has become an expert at and she tries not to think about how she won’t be alive to see her children graduate from university or get married.
‘I actually don’t think that far ahead. I know I’m not going to be here soon – there’s no point in even going there,’ she says. ‘I’m totally living my life while I can because I know that’s not going to last forever.
That’s the reality. I’ve seen women in this position in hospice in an awful lot of pain, very sick – and I’m not at all.
‘I go to Dublin for my treatment every three weeks, between that I have nothing. I’m on a small bit of pain medication and other than that I live my life as if I didn’t have cancer. You wouldn’t know it. I do as much as an able-bodied person.’
However, she reveals she sometimes feels like one of the unluckiest people alive considering all the misfortunes she has suffered.
Firstly, there was the car crash that left her in a coma and killed her boyfriend. Secondly, she endured a difficult birth with her daughter Amelia who was diagnosed with toxoplasmosis, a disease caused by a parasite that can lead to blindness and brain damage.
Then, at the age of seven, Amelia was dancing in front of the fire one evening when her dress caught fire and she suffered severe burns to her upper body.
‘At times when things are really bad, I suppose after the accident [with Amelia], I got so bitter about that, that was going around in my head like, “What the f*** did I do to deserve this? What have I done? Why is all this s*** happening to me?’ she admits.
‘And that eats in on you. Those
‘And I want to be cremated. I don’t want to be buried’
type of thoughts really get in on you when you start thinking like that. And I know in my case when I start thinking like that, that it turns inwards on me, and turns into depression.’
Rereading her own book, Overcoming – which was launched in September – brought home what had happened in her own life.
‘I’ve suffered from depression on and off for the last 15 years, since my daughter was born. And I can’t go back there. So, I don’t allow myself to go there with those thoughts,’ Vicky says. ‘When I was getting the book ready, I read it and I went, “Oh my God!” Even my mother said, “Jesus! Vicky, even though I know what has happened to you, we’ve been with you every step of the way, when you see it all in one place!” I said, “I know! It’s just unbelievable.”
‘You would think it was fiction – except it isn’t.
‘But I have to say to myself, “I’m well now. I’m in a good place.” There’s no point in thinking, “My God! Why did this always happen to me?” So, I can’t go there. I just don’t let myself go there with my thoughts because it doesn’t bring me to a good place.’
She goes on: ‘I haven’t felt the need [for therapy now] because I shared so much over the last 18 months of my life publicly. It’s nearly like therapy, to be honest. It definitely has helped me to open up and talk about these things.’
In her award-winning memoir, Vicky revealed she had broken up with her husband, Jim, but the couple have decided to remain living together for the sake of their children. ‘We’re not Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin now, it’s not a conscious uncoupling.
‘We made a decision the kids have enough on their plate without their parents’ separating, but we’re no longer together as a couple,’ she says. ‘We still live in the same house. We get on very well, we’re great friends. It’s better for the kids.
‘I’ve had a lot of advice on this. One of my friends is a psychotherapist and she said, “As long as you’re getting on there’s no need to change your situation because the kids are always happier in a home with two parents”.’
She insists though there was no third party involved in the decision to split two years ago. ‘Nobody had an affair. It’s just circumstances, we’ve grown apart.
‘There was too much thrown at us throughout our married life really. The s*** hit the fan within six months of being married when my pregnancy went haywire and we’ve been battling stuff ever since, and you can’t keep doing that. You just can’t.’
The couple have no plans to divorce and are even planning a once-in-a-lifetime trip together at Christmas to visit family in New Zealand.
‘We are not getting divorced. We are staying together to parent our
‘We still live in the same house, we’re great friends’
On her regrets
I should’ve taken a year out, deferred the PhD for a year and went off travelling
On Simon Harris
I can’t say that he’s doing a good job for everybody, but he’s doing a good job for CervicalCheck
On depression
I was never suicidal. But I used to think about getting up and leaving my kids and my husband
On menopause
I’ve had no periods since I was 39. Then you lose your libido and that whole desire is just gone
children, so I suppose you would call it a “parenting marriage”.
‘We are getting on so well now that we have named what our relationship is, that we are going to New Zealand together, all four of us – Jim, myself and the two kids – to spend Christmas together.
‘We just do not operate as a couple any more. We no longer have a physical relationship but that’s pretty much it.’
Vicky reveals they last attempted intercourse four years ago but it was too painful.
‘God, we tried to have sex twice in 2015 and that was it, and gave up. The pain is horrendous,’ she admits.
She also said she would have no objection if Jim was to find himself a new partner.
‘I’d be happy if he found somebody else, honestly, hand on heart, I would, yeah.’
The couple know the importance of taking occasional time apart from each other too. And when things get too much they spend a few days at their new holiday home in west Clare, which was purchased from part of the €2.5m High Court settlement.
‘So, when one of us needs to get time away that’s what we do – one of us goes out there for a couple of days. And if we got to a situation where we weren’t getting on, at least we have that option,’ she says.
Vicky says she explained their family situation and unusual living conditions to their eldest child, Amelia. ‘I don’t want her growing up thinking that what we have is a normal relationship, at the same time, because it isn’t. But, in fairness, she was very astute anyway, she could see that. She said, “Well, you’re not very romantic and you don’t go out on dates!” She was no fool. We don’t give kids enough credit.
Vicky says she thought it was sad when couples fall out of love but adds: ‘We tried a number of times to kind of get back together – but it was just too hard. So, when we made the decision to just forget about it as a couple it just made things much easier for us and we’ve actually started getting on better as a result.’