“A 10-pound Pom”, Peter Bailey came to Australia as a 21-year-old in 1972. "I met my wife. We got married. Bought the house, had three kids. Now we have 10 grandkids and four great grandkids.”
At the age of 72, Peter expected to be travelling the world once more, enjoying his retirement. Instead, a diagnosis of bladder cancer led to multiple surgeries, each with its own complications – holes and internal leaks – and fibroid scarring. Urine drained from his body through tubes in his back.
At night Peter slept propped up with pillows, a bucket on each side of the bed, to collect his urine. The slightest bump could dislodge the tubes. “I think so far this week there have been three leaks. You wake up in the morning and the sheets are soaked and the smell is so bad.”
Moving around was painful. There was no independence. Even going to the toilet was a struggle. “I'm twisting my neck and trying to get these bags to work. You gotta juggle everything, be a contortionist, really”.
The tubes poking through his back regularly got infected, so Peter would spend days, sometimes weeks, going in and out of hospital. Sometimes he waited in emergency for hours before he could be seen.
“Last time was 8 hours. One of my bags broke. Urine everywhere. Lovely."
Responsibility for cleaning the wounds and flushing the tubes fell to Peter’s wife Marie, a former nurse. “It’s a 24/7 job,” she said. "He couldn't do it on his own. “I won’t leave him in dire straits.”
“I’m completely dependent on people," Peter agreed. "And I shouldn't be. Everything is difficult, tedious and embarrassing.”
Marie said she was shocked but not surprised when Peter raised the possibility of VAD. “We’ve been together 47 years. I know what he’s like. I’d rather have him do this then commit suicide. This way I can be with him and he won’t be alone.”
Peter didn’t know when he would take the VAD medication. "When will it be the right time? I don’t know. I‘m rather hoping there'll be an epiphany of some sort that says ‘all right, it’s time to go’.
"I mean, I imagine it will be when I get pissed off with everything and I’m fast approaching that stage."
“I don’t want to leave the planet, leave everyone behind. Kids are getting married, having babies. It won’t be an easy decision. But it’s a load off my mind just knowing VAD is an option.”
Doctors offered him one last experimental surgery to redirect his urine into his bowel. It would take 15-hours and if it worked it would mean liquid stools and going to the toilet more often.
“No thank you," Peter said. "There is too much suffering and risky surgery. Endless hospital stays. It’s no quality of life.
“You get pissed off with living like this. Because it’s not really living, it’s just existing.
“They said it’s going to get a lot worse. There’s a lot of pain coming. So VAD it is.”
In July 2023, Peter stopped all treatments and removed his tubes. It took four days for his wounds to turn septic. He swallowed his VAD medication at home with Marie and family by his side.
