Warning: This article contains content which some readers may find distressing.
A mum has opened up about how she was pushed to making a heartbreaking decision as she watched her child succumb to a devastating illness.
When Millie Blenkisop-French's son noticed a small lump, 'the size of a pea', on his neck, she told him to go and get it checked out, worried it could be something sinister.
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And while he wasn't overly concerned at first, James went to see his doctor and was given the news that he had a vicious form of skin cancer.
Over the coming months, the 51-year-old's body was taken over by the disease and died in horrific circumstances, says Millie, who was forced to watch on with her daughter, helpless as he was taken from them.
Speaking in LADbible's new documentary, The Island Choosing Death, Millie admitted that in desperation to end his suffering, she planned on killing him herself.
“I know this is not a very nice thing to say, but when you’re desperate, I couldn’t bear watching him going through what he was going through, so I bought a bottle of vodka and some pills and I was gonna kill him," she told us.
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“Anyway, the day I was going to do it, and I went with the bottle of vodka and the pills, Janet [James' sister] says, ‘Mam, he can’t even swallow anymore’. 'Oh, no, God, I’ve left it too late'.
"I hadn’t said anything to them, I hadn’t told them. I told Janet afterwards, after he died, I told Janet what I was going to do.
“I thought, well, I brought him into the world, surely it was my right to take him out, not to stand by and watch him suffer the way he was suffering. It was horrible."
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Following James' death in 2021, Millie stepped up her campaign to see assisted dying legalised on the Isle of Man, so no one else would have to go through what she and James did.
A controversial bill, which has split opinion among residents, is currently being debated and could allow terminally ill residents with less than 12 months left to live to end their life.
Millie believes that unless you've experienced what she has you can't understand what it means to lose someone in such heartbreaking circumstances.
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The 81-year-old said: “I’ve often said this to one or two people when I’ve had the conversation with them, ‘Have you ever sat and watched your child or somebody you love very much dying in horrific pain?’ ‘Well, no, not really… '.
"I said, ‘Well, you haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about’, I said, ‘You have not got a clue’.
“We would talk about everything, James and I, we were really, really close.
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“He says, because he had dogs, he says, ‘When the dogs are poorly, to the point where there’s gonna be no hope for them', he says, 'You go and put them to sleep. I still can’t understand why people have got to wait until the end if there’s something can be done for them for them’.
“So we had a long discussion about it. If assisted dying had been in, I know James would have opted for it."
"Nobody should have to suffer like that, nobody."
She added: “There’s nothing like losing your child. Yeah, I know he was 51, but he was still my baby, do you understand? He was my baby. And it just didn’t seem fair. Why?”
You can watch the full documentary here:
The bill has come up against strong opposition from a number of doctors on the island, who have serious concerns about how the law would be regulated, and what safeguards would be put in place for the most vulnerable people.
Dr Duncan Gerry told us that he has deep concerns about the impact it would have how it could be abused.
"This law demands that health professionals go down a route and a rabbit hole that we've never done before, which is actively seeking to end life," he explained.
"My challenge is, having looked in depth of what assisted dying does in the jurisdictions it comes into, one person's choice can negatively impact on somebody else.
"I'm very much a logical thinker, so I'm trying to work to the logic of what it means and what the implications are and what the outcomes might be, and who's going to be harmed more or less by it. And in terms of logic, it feels to me that you can't come up with an answer that works for assisted dying."
He added: "Does my gut instinct tell me the same thing? Absolutely."
The assisted dying bill is currently being scrutinised by the Legislative Council on the Isle of Man, if passed here, it could receive Royal Assent next year and be introduced by 2027.
Dominic Smithers