Assisted dying: Knowing when it is time to go
Less than a month into their relationship, Vicky Janssens (right) discovered lumps in her neck and doctors later confirmed that her cancer was back. Garret Ahern (left) said: "I wasn't going to walk away from this woman who I loved."
Time flew so much on their wonderful first date that he nearly missed his train home. But it was as if time stood still on their final day together as he watched the life ebb from the pain-wracked body of his terminally ill wife after she availed of an assisted dying procedure in Belgium.
Driven by the memories of those two days which bookended their loving relationship, grieving husband and father Garret Ahern is now campaigning to legalise assisted dying here — a law which would have meant that his beloved wife, Vicky Janssens, could have died at home in Cork the way she wanted.
