ANNE’S STORY
I couldn’t believe Cathrin was allowed to end up like that. She suffered right up until the very end, but she shouldn’t have had to go through that. She deserved better
Losing a child is undoubtedly one of the worst experiences a parent can go through.
But, for Anne Logue, watching her daughter suffer excruciating pain, lose her mind and be robbed of the chance to say goodbye to her young daughters is by far the greatest trauma.
“Losing my daughter was awful, but watching her suffer and die without dignity was just horrendous,” she said. “It’s inhumane. Nobody should have to die like that. It’s now 18 months since Cathrin died in a hospice and I am still haunted by her death: for her and for other terminally ill people I believe the assisted dying act would have afforded dignity and peace. Cathrin had neither of these.”
Anne’s daughter, Cathrin Higgins, passed away in May last year, just eight weeks after a terminal cancer diagnosis. The 38-year-old spent the last few weeks of her life confined to a hospice bed, deteriorating so rapidly she was unable to walk, talk, eat or even stay conscious long enough to engage with her family…and in such agony that even a cocktail of strong painkillers and sedatives couldn’t keep the pain at bay.
Mum-of-four Anne can’t help but think things could have been different. When she was first diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer four years ago, Cathrin expressed an interest in assisted dying. And, when the terminal diagnosis came, she and her husband Stuart looked into travelling to Dignitas in Switzerland, to end her life so her seven and two-year-old daughters didn’t need to watch their mum get sick.
But, sadly, Cathrin went downhill so rapidly that time robbed the family of that chance.
Now heartbroken Anne is backing a campaign to convince the Scottish Parliament to allow terminally ill people in Scotland to choose to end their own life.
“When I looked at Cathrin, just before she died, I couldn’t believe people were allowed to end up like that,” Anne, 67, said.
“She suffered right up until the very end, but she shouldn’t have had to go through that.
“She should have had a choice because she deserved better.”
Before her diagnosis in April 2016, Cathrin, from Barrhead, was never ill. A high-flying lawyer and busy mum, she was vivacious, independent and active.
But, after finding lumps at the side of her breast, life as she knew it began to change.
“She had them checked by the doctor and was advised it was nothing sinister, nothing to worry about. It couldn’t be breast cancer in someone her age,” Anne recalled. “But, unhappy with the diagnosis, she went back a couple of weeks later to a different doctor who said it was cancer, and they could see the progression already.
“Cathrin had biopsies, breast scans, ultrasounds, and was eventually told she had HER2 positive breast cancer, a very aggressive form of cancer. She was devastated, but she took it on the chin and powered through. I still remember her saying she was told it was a ‘tricky cancer’ – and it sure was.”
Cathrin endured a mastectomy and various different types of chemotherapy, tried wonder drugs and clinical trials. She lost her hair but went back to work and, two years after diagnosis, even managed, against all odds,
to fall pregnant. “It was a miracle in the midst of it all,” Anne said. “She was about 23 weeks before she found out because she had so much going on, a baby was the last thing on her mind. But little Maisie gave Cathrin a new lease of life – a new reason to fight.
“Initially being a new mum again gave her a complete psychological reboot. She thought it might be a sign that everything was going to be alright.”
But doctors discovered the cancer was spreading. “They tried her on a wonder drug that had a 75% success rate – but she fell in the 25% it didn’t work for her,” Anne said. “In fact, every treatment she had, she was in the small percentage without success. The cancer just kept coming back.”
Exactly two years after diagnosis, Cathrin was told there had been a 5% reduction in the tumours in her chest. The family were over the moon but, a few days later, she woke up with a dead arm. Investigations revealed three tumours in Cathrin’s brain. Surgery successfully removed two of the tumours and the third was blasted with radiotherapy.
“Everything seemed to be going well, but Cathrin never got the feeling in her arm back,” Anne said. “As time went by, she started dragging her leg, experienced problems with her sight and, one day, she went to thank the Tesco delivery guy and no words came out. Her speech went away and came back time and time again after that.”
The changes were put down to steroids but, in March this year, Cathrin had a scan.
“The doctors said the cancer had spread beyond redemption. It would be palliative care from that point,” Anne said. “It was just like a shadow over the top of her skull. The cancer had doubled its efforts and there was nothing more that could be done.”
The terminal news came during lockdown, which Anne says made everything “a million times worse”. The oncologist said she would get the full care package – but three weeks later there had been no contact.
“Cathrin was on the phone to the cancer nurses begging for help. She was absolutely terrified. There is nothing worse than being told you are going to die and just left. It was hard to watch. Cathrin was miserable. She wouldn’t get out of her pyjamas or go outside. Just lay on the couch all day and cried.”
On April 17, 2020, Cathrin went into a hospice. Anne and Stuart visited every day.
“Cathrin was just a mess,” Anne said. “She was incontinent, couldn’t feed herself, couldn’t walk, couldn’t speak. She had no balance so would fall over. She slept most of the day and was pumped full of painkillers. When she was awake, she was only semiconscious. Her mobile had been turned off and just lay in a bag on the table. It was clear she didn’t need it any more.
“She just went down and down. Eleven days before she died, Cathrin had a bad seizure. After that, Stuart and the kids said goodbye and didn’t come back. He did an amazing job preparing the girls for the fact that their mum wasn’t going to survive. He knew she was going to get worse and couldn’t bear the thought of the girls remembering their mum sicker than she already was. In the last week, she kept flinching and her eyes were flickering. I asked the nurse what that was, and she said it was breakthrough pain. It’s horrendous to think that, even on incredibly high doses of morphine, Cathrin was still suffering.”
Cathrin died on May 7 last year. “On the day she died, I had not long left the hospital when I got a call to say things weren’t looking good and I should come back,” Anne said. “I wondered how she could be any worse, but the nurse said her breathing had changed. She was deep purply red and was burning up, but her arms and legs were stone cold. And then I heard it, the death rattle. Nothing could have prepared me for that sound.
“I stayed with her for five hours until she stopped breathing. It was almost a relief to see her not in pain any more. But she should have died peacefully and in a lot less pain.”
After the experience, teacher Anne strongly believes people with a terminal diagnosis should be given the choice to die, when and how they want. “If there was a drug, Cathrin
could have said her goodbyes, hugged her kids and drifted off peacefully in her sleep. It could have given her those last moments with her family that she and we all needed. I 100% believe Cathrin would have made that choice. At the very beginning, she spoke about having the choice of assisted dying somewhere like Dignitas in Switzerland. It was on her radar right from the start.
“She and Stuart discussed it again after the terminal diagnosis. He even went as far as to look into what it would cost. It was expensive, about £10,000-£12,000 and that was without repatriation. But it was what Cathrin wanted. She didn’t want to die at home in front of the children – and she didn’t want them to remember their mum as a sick woman in a hospice bed. But she deteriorated so quickly that she was too sick to travel.
“Losing Cathrin has been devastating for us all. But it would be nice to have said goodbye without all the trauma. I think that will haunt me for a long time to come because I know my daughter deserved so much more. She deserved to die with dignity.”
Writers and philosophers, comedians and poets have long grappled with the inevitability of death.
The United States’ founding father, Benjamin Franklin, said there were only two things certain in life: death and taxes.
Shakespeare put it more poetically when he wrote: “All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity.”
Death was a recurring theme for comedian Spike Milligan who sagely observed: “All men are cremated equal.” He got the ultimate last laugh with his epitaph, which reads: “I told you I was ill.”
For most of us though, busy with the day-to-day business of living, death is something we would rather not dwell upon – unless we have to.
But this week the Scottish people are being asked to think very carefully about it, when a public consultation on a proposed new law to legalise assisted dying is launched. If passed, the law would allow people with a terminal diagnosis to access medication to end their own lives. Scotland would then join a growing list of countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada and New Zealand in making assisted suicide legal.
For many of us, it is easier to turn away
The proposed Assisted Dying Scotland Bill comes as The British Medical Association (BMA) voted to adopt a neutral stance on the issue, after years of opposing it.
Campaigners seeking a change in the law welcomed the move as a “historic milestone”. For others it is an aberration and a slippery slope towards a system that could be open to abuse, preferring more money to be put into bolstering our palliative care services.
It is indicative of the polarising and sensitive nature of the issue, that the BMA vote was almost split down the middle, with 49% voting in favour, 48% against, and 3% abstaining.
Whatever your stance, it is hard to ignore the growing calls for terminally ill patients to be given control over how, and when, they choose to leave this world.
People like Anne Logue who watched her 38-year-old daughter, Cathrin, die in “pain and fear” to a particularly aggressive and cruel form of breast cancer.
Anne is adamant that if given the choice, Cathrin could have chosen a more peaceful and dignified death which would have allowed her to say a proper goodbye to her own two daughters.
Anne says: “If there was a drug, Cathrin could have said her goodbyes, hugged her kids and drifted off peacefully in her sleep.
“It could have given her those last moments with her family that she and we all needed.”
Anne’s story is a difficult read. In fact for many of us it is easier to turn away. This week, though, she will add her voice to the argument for assisted dying to be made legal in Scotland.
It is right that we listen to those who can speak from bitter experience, but before we put that power into human hands, we must make sure every voice is heard.