Seales might not live to hear verdict

Lecretia’s choice is imminent, and we don’t know yet if she will get to make it.

A terminally ill Wellington lawyer fighting for the right to end her own life might not live to hear the verdict.

Lecretia Seales’ health has deteriorated and she is now in a hospital bed in her home, writes husband Matt Vickers on Seales’ blog.

Seales finished a case in the High Court in Wellington on Wednesday, in which she seeks to end her life peacefully with the help of her general practitioner. She does not want to be dependent on the care of others in her final days, to suffer intolerably or be sedated to the extent that she is not conscious of her loved ones.

But her wish might not be granted before she dies.

‘‘Lecretia is not well. Her eyes are closed most of the time. She is having trouble swallowing. She is talking less and less. But she is facing all of this without complaint,’’ Vickers writes.

He says they had to organise to get a hospital bed into their home, because getting out of bed had become a struggle.

‘‘Despite being awake and lucid, her paralysis had taken a firm grip on her whole body, and she had become as rigid as a plank, unable to bend at the waist.

‘‘Her brother and I worked to lift her together, and almost had to force her to bend so that she could get into a seated position.’’

Every so often a tremor comes, he writes. ‘‘Her whole body shakes and vibrates. The pressure of the tumour on her brain stem is causing her brain to reconfigure, to shift against itself like restless earth, causing her body to tremble, the frame of the bed shaking and rattling. And then it subsides, and she rests.

‘‘Lecretia’s choice is imminent, and we don’t know yet if she will get to make it.’’

The 42-year-old has an un- treatable brain tumour and is thought to be just weeks from death.

‘‘She doesn’t know what is yet to come, and what she will have to endure, and that must be terrifying,’’ Vickers writes.

‘‘I know that having the ability to make a choice about how her life ends would give her more strength to face it . . . I don’t know what she will ultimately choose, or even whether she will get to.

‘‘But for Lecretia, it was always having the choice that mattered, not the choice itself.

‘‘We are hoping for a judgment that acknowledges and respects Lecretia’s free will and autonomy over her own life; the ability to decide how she lives it and how it ends. That is all she wants,’’ Vickers writes.

Justice David Collins reserved his decision on Wednesday and said he would work through Queen’s Birthday weekend to quickly deliver a result.