Edition 207
www.thecourier.es
Friday 6th February 2015
A TIME TO DIE BRAVE LADY NAMES THE DAY
By TONY MAYES A 27yearold Dutch woman, living in the La Mata area of Torrevieja, knows pre cisely when she is going to die. It will be on her 28th birthday on May 9th. She will be wearing a special white dress, with the body of her dog in her arms. Her hair will be perfectly groomed, she will have full make up and she knows precisely how she will die. She said: “I chose that day to die that is because I want to die on the day I was born, so life and death will come together." Manon Zwetsloot is amazingly singly minded. She is also most incredibly brave. And she has had the presence of mind to be able to determine the time, date and place of her death, and what will happen to her body and that of the love of her life, her pet dog Benji, after death. Benji will be put down by a vet shortly before Manon has her life ended and she will hold his body. She is currently in La Mata writing a book on her life and feelings as she goes through this most heartwrenching process. Why? Because Manon has a medically baffling musclewasting dis ease. She has had tests from numerous medical experts and has been told there is no cure and she will probably only progressively succumb to the ill ness. And Manon is determined not to end up con fined to a wheelchair or bed, fed through tubes and having every aspect of her life done by others just waiting to die naturally. She told The Courier that she is determined not to die from her disability. "I am not prepared to live like this. I made up my mind not to go through this and I told my family and friends of my intention. Noone has tried to talk me out of it." Manon is not a religious person. She does not believe in God, but she does hope she will go to a better place. "It can´t be worse than it is here," she added. " I don't have any physical pain, but mentally I am in pain. It’s not pain that you can see on the outside, but my heart is broken"
Manon first realised something was wrong about six years ago when she began losing her balance. Then she became susceptible to falling, and on one occasion fell and broke her jaw. Progressively the condition got worse and now she cannot raise her arms above her waist, has great difficulty walk ing or carrying anything. She has undergone many tests and the obvious illnesses, such as motor neu rone disease and MS has been ruled out, as has an illness passed down from parents proved through DNA tests. Medics have no idea what the disease is, but they all say Manon is likely to get worse. Sadly, Manon did not have the best of child hoods. "I was the oldest of four children and my mother was very dismissive of me, not loving, and she often beat me, expecting me to do much of the work of bringing up the other children." Finally her parents divorced and Manon went to live with her father and is now estranged from her mother and her sisters too. Her experiences during adoles cence have made Manon fiercely independent and probably have helped her reach the monumental decision she has reached to end her life on her birthday. She will travel to her native Holland, where a doctor will give her two injections, one to make her extremely drowsy, and the other to stop her heart. She will be with her friend, Coco, who spent a few days with over here, returning again to Spain to travel back to Holland with her in May. Coco is a professional photographer who will take pictures of the sequence of events leading up to and beyond death. Family and friends will be in another room and she does not want to see any sad faces. Manon is pictured here holding a portrait picture of herself, wearing the dress she will have on when she dies. She has arranged every aspect of her funeral and she wants it a happy occasion a cel ebration of her life. She recently had butterflies tat tooed on her back and she hopes these will be her guide to take her to a better place.
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