I have terminal cancer and won’t wait around for the agonising death my wife had

My diagnosis hit hard (Picture: Barry Gleeson)

It started, as these things often do, with something small – I was getting up to urinate three or four times a night.

At first, I thought nothing of it. But my wife Irene insisted I get a second opinion, so I went to the GP.

He suggested a PSA test and within 48 hours I got the call: ‘Your results are high, Barry. You’d better come in for a chat.’

After that, everything moved quickly. Scans confirmed what I feared most: Advanced prostate cancer with just five years to live.

It had already spread to my ribs. I’d been feeling tired, but I was in my eighties – I thought that was just life. Suddenly it all made sense.

Sheila’s symptoms started on the flight home from Florida in March 1998 (Picture: Barry Gleeson)

The diagnosis hit hard, not because I feared death, but because I knew how much pain it could cause. I’d seen it before.

My first wife, Sheila, died of cancer at just 52, and her death was the most traumatic thing I’ve ever witnessed.

Sheila’s symptoms started on the flight home from Florida in March 1998. She was struggling to breathe, then came the coughing and breathlessness.

At first we thought it was her medication, but it continued to get worse so we consulted a doctor in August. She was diagnosed with lung cancer by September.

At the time, they told us they’d caught it early. This gave us hope, but it didn’t last. 

Barry and Sheila (Picture: Barry Gleeson)

The cancer spread fast. She went through chemotherapy over Christmas – it made her incredibly sick and did nothing to slow the disease.

She had surgery a few months later, but I knew something was wrong the next morning when she was still in intensive care. The doctors told me it had spread to her heart and that there was nothing more they could do.

From there, it was straight to the hospice. The staff were brilliant – warm, skilled, tireless – but they couldn’t relieve her pain.

Sheila was in agony. She was screaming out that she wanted to die, injecting morphine herself and begging for the agony to end.

It wasn’t depression. It was desperation. She knew she wasn’t going to get better and she didn’t want to suffer through to the end.

Sheila died on December 28, 1999 (Picture: Barry Gleeson)

Sheila spent three months in that hospice. She came home briefly when they thought the cancer might be in remission, but within 10 days she was back.

She died on December 28, 1999, roughly a year and a half after her diagnosis. I was there, holding her hand.

My son had been keeping vigil for weeks and, that day, I finally convinced him to go home and rest. She passed within an hour of him leaving. 

We never talked about assisted dying – back then, we didn’t know it existed. But if it had been legal, I have no doubt she would have chosen it. 

When I was diagnosed in January 2020, I made a clear decision: No chemotherapy. Not after seeing what it did to Sheila.

I started hormone treatment instead, which I still receive every 12 weeks, and it’s worked really well so far. I’m proud to say that my PSA levels are low and, against the odds, I’m still here over five years later. 

In 2017, I started researching assisted dying and joined a Swiss organisation, lifecircle, that helps people end their lives peacefully and legally, which has provided some comfort that I won’t face what Sheila faced.

But not everyone can afford to go abroad, and there are still legal implications that put my loved ones at risk if they want to join me in my final days. We’ve spoken about this as a family and my son is happy to take the risk, but it shouldn’t have to be this way. 

Why do I have to leave my own country and subject my family to criminal prosecution in order to die at peace?

The assisted dying bill currently being debated in Parliament could change everything. It would give terminally ill people the legal right to die with medical support.

I’m thankful my wife Irene insisted I get a second opinion, which led to my cancer diagnosis (Picture: Barry Gleeson)

It’s not about encouraging death – it’s about giving people the choice to die with compassion. Polling shows that 75% of the British public support this, so why is it still up for debate?

Some people oppose it for religious or moral reasons. I respect that – for them. But their beliefs shouldn’t get to decide how I die.

This is about giving people the freedom of choice, to make the decision for themselves. If you’ve never sat beside someone who’s screaming in pain for months, it’s easy to talk about hope and palliative care.

But for some, like Sheila, even the best hospice care isn’t enough.

If the law changes, I’ll be able to live the rest of my life with peace of mind. Not because I’m in a rush to die, but because I’ll know that I don’t have to suffer. That I won’t have to put my family through what I went through with Sheila.

I hope Parliament listens, not just to campaigners, but to the people who’ve lived through the trauma watching their loved ones die painfully, and the families who can’t forget it.

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