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Living with DyingArrow
Age 61-70
Interview 15  

Interview 15

Age at Interview: 68
Sex: Female
Age at Diagnosis: 57
Background: Teacher (retired), married, 2 children
Brief outline:Breast cancer diagnosed in 1992, followed by a lumpectomy and radiotherapy. Sarcoma diagnosed in 2000, followed by double mastectomy.


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Female
She would prefer to die in a hospice for a number of reasons.

 



Have you thought about whether you'd like to stay at home or go in a nursing home?  

Yes.

I think about them, myself.

I think if the cancer got bad I would like to go to a hospice. My husband is not terribly practical when it comes to looking after someone who is very ill and I think that I would like, if it came to it, I think I'd like to be in a hospice where they control the pain for you, look after you.  

My biggest problem with thinking about death is not the actual dying because I can envisage that as going to sleep and not knowing anything about it like you go in for surgery. You have the anaesthetic and you're gone and you know nothing about it and you just don't wake up. I think of death like that.

What worries me is what's going to happen before, particularly with cancer because you hear so much about the pain. I've experienced pain, I've had the pain in this breast so I have experienced pain and that side of it does worry me in wondering how I would cope with it. So for that reason I think I would like to be in a hospice.  

I don't think I would want to come home to die. I think I would like to stay where I am because I think it would be very difficult for my family to come to my home, or for my husband to visualise what had happened. So I think I would rather... I don't think I would like to be in hospital. I would like to be in a hospice and I would like to be in a caring environment.

So are you thinking a lot about how it would affect your family? Where you'd be. You're saying you wouldn't want to be at home because of how they would feel?  

Yes. I think a) the demands of caring and b) thinking about my family afterwards. I think it would be very difficult for them to come to the house if my husband was here on his own, and they had seen me die here. Especially because we loved it so much I think I would want to be elsewhere.
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