Diagnosed with a rare, aggressive, and incurable brain tumour, Dan Colgan, 63, decided to take control. Not just of how he would die but how he would live.
Having watched family members and friends waste away with other terminal conditions, Dan was adamant he did not want this for himself.
"My father passed away seven years ago, that was pharyngeal cancer, throat cancer. He was a person who really needed to be in control of everything and at the end that was taken away from him."
Dan said he would prefer to die sooner rather than stretch his dying out in ways that were not acceptable for him.
"The very first conversation I had with my sons I said 'I'm in it for a good time not a long time, I'm in it for the quality of life, not the length of life'."
With a form of cancer that was resistant to chemo, he decided to stop traditional treatments in favour of healthy diets and supplements. He applied for VAD and was approved.
"I want to die a courageous death. I want to be able to have the courage to make that choice and to see it through when that time comes. It's my control mechanism."
Dan and wife Laury are a strong and united team. "I'm absolutely on board with VAD for Dan. I'm pragmatic and emotional in equal measure and I back his decision 100 percent."
"With VAD you don't know until the last minute whether you'll go ahead with it. It's confronting. I want to find the courage to take it. Will I be too chicken shit? Maybe, but having it as an option takes away the anxiety ten-fold.
"Knowing my death is now largely in my hands has granted me an overwhelming sense of calm and euphoria. Now the dying has been taken care of, I can focus on living."
