Lily Thai, who is 23 years old, has decided to kill herself tomorrow (June 21). This is a choice she made on her own.
Lily, who has Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS), signed the forms last week so that she could die. She is doing this with the help of the new rules on assisted dying.
In January, South Australia made assisted suicide legal, and the government has promised to spend $18 million over the next five years to make sure that the new euthanasia service is safe and easy to use.
Lily told The Advertiser, “I realised I can’t have any more anaesthesia, so I couldn’t have any more feeding tube changes or surgeries.”
Lily is always in pain because of her EDS. Her joints, skin, and the walls of her blood vessels are all affected. She also depends on her father to do everything for her, “even the most intimate things,” because of her debilitating illness.
Tomorrow, Lily will be given an IV drug that will kill her in a matter of seconds.
An Australian young woman, Lily Thai, 23, prepares to take her own life because of a disorder that keeps her in a constant state of pain.
According to South Australia's voluntary assisted dying laws, which the state enacted in January, Thai will die on Wednesday, Daily Mail… pic.twitter.com/GSn77Tuddz
— Instablog9ja (@instablog9ja) June 19, 2023
The young woman’s family is obviously very sad, but they do not want her to suffer for the rest of her life.
She told the outlet: “I’ll no longer be in pain, I won’t have to deal with any of these problems, and I’ll finally be free of all the pain I’ve been through for so many years.”
Lily used to think that her bad health was caused by a spinal fluid leak, but even after she got treatment for the problem, her “condition didn’t change, and doctors didn’t know” how to make her health better.
Lily went to Sydney when she was 21 to meet a surgeon who “specialised in spinal problems for people with EDS.”
At that point, she wore a halo brace and needed a nasal feeding tube because she “couldn’t keep anything down.” She was also only 88 pounds.
In May 2021, she had surgery to fuse her spine, and a few days later, she was given a gastro Jejenul feeding tube to drain acid and secretions from her stomach.
Hospitals had to follow strict Covid-19 rules while Lily was getting better, so she felt very alone at the time.
She said, “I couldn’t stand not seeing my dad, so I got out of jail early.”
Then, she was told she had a rare disease called auto-immune autonomic ganglionopathy, in which a person’s immune system attacks their nervous system.
“The neurologist said I was in multi-organ failure, but it wasn’t until I got very sick after one of my surgeries and went to see my rehab doctor that they found a large lesion on the left side of my brain,” she said. He thought I might have a form of motor nerve disease.
Lily has been making plans for her own funeral while she waits for the day when she will be helped to die. She’s also been busy saying goodbye to everyone she cares about.
We hope the best for Lily and her friends and family at this time.