Family release heartbreaking images of frail mum, 68, paralysed by MS who begged for her suffering to end after disease ravaged her body
Grieving husband shares photos to encourage Government to reconsider assistant suicide laws
STARK photos show the frail and paralysed body of a multiple sclerosis sufferer who begged for the right to die.
Flora Lorimer's heartbroken family have released the images to show why they believe she should have been allowed to end her suffering.
When Flora succumbed to her illness last month her bones could be seen clearly through her pale skin.
Her husband of 51 years Tom and daughter Tracy Taylor hope the harrowing photos will encourage the Government to rethink assisted suicide laws.
Tracey told the : "Mum was just left to suffer – it was torture, absolute torture.
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"Why do we give our pets more consideration than we do our loved ones?
"If my mum was a dog and my dad had just left her in that condition, he’d go to prison and the dog would be put down.
"So why is it OK for a human to suffer?
"The Government need to see why people want the choice to decide when to die."
Tom, who is registered blind, cared for his beloved wife in her last days.
The 69-year-old of Glenrothes in Fife, Scotland, said: "I can visualise just how she looked at the end. When I was washing her, the cloth would just bump over her ribs.
“She wouldn’t let anybody else do things for her – she always said I would do it. I didn’t mind.
“She didn’t want to be a burden. She was the nurses’ and carers’ favourite as she never complained.
“She was always apologising if she had ulcers and if they got worse, she’d say sorry. It got really degrading in the end.
“She’d lie in the bed and say, ‘I don’t want to be here’ and, ‘I don’t want to see you tomorrow’. She was struggling to talk but we knew what she was saying."
Tom and Flora were childhood sweethearts and met on the swings in a Dundee park when they were 13.
They married four years later and had three children.
Flora was diagnosed when multiple sclerosis when she was 20 after she began dragging her left leg.
Tom added: "She took the diagnosis in her stride and just kind of accepted it. But at the Millennium, it really took hold.
"It would take us about an hour to get to the shops – two steps and stop, two steps and stop – but we had to fight her to get her in the wheelchair. She was adamant she didn’t need it.
"When she got her electric chair, you’d take her up the town and she would drive into everything. She’d go into shops and come out with bras hanging off the chair. We had to laugh about it."
Flora died on December 12 and her certificate listed the cause as MS and respiratory distress.
What is multiple sclerosis and how does it affect its sufferers?
Mutiple sclerosis affects the brain or spinal cord and sometimes both.
It can cause problems with vision, arm or leg movement, sensation or balance.
It is a lifelong condition that can sometimes cause serious disablity.
In some sufferers the symptoms are only mild.
The average life expectancy of someone with MS is slightly reduced.
It is estimated there are more than 100,000 peope with MS in the UK.
It is most commonly identified in people aged in their 20s and 30s.
It is roughly two or three times more common in women than men.
There are two types of multiple sclerosis.
Those with 'relapse-remitting MS' have episodes or 'replases' where their symptoms worsen.
Roughly eight out of every ten sufferes are affected by 'relapse-remitting MS'.
The others are affected by primary progressive MS where their symptoms worsen as time goes on.
MS sufferers experience 'replases' where symptoms will suddenly affect them.
There is no cure for MS but a number of treatments can help after relapses.
Treatments include steroid medication and and medicines called 'disease-modifying therapies'
Tracey, 51, said: "My mum used to love her life. She’d get in her wheelchair and dance with us. She was spinning around the room at her 60th birthday party.
"It would only have been about two years ago that she would have said she had had enough.
"It’s when she couldn’t cope, when her body started failing her, when she couldn’t use her hands and she was paralysed from the neck down. She couldn’t get a drink by herself, she couldn’t do anything for herself.
"That’s when it should have been her choice to take a pill, fall asleep and peacefully drift away with her family around her.
"We were all around her when she passed but it wasn’t peaceful.
"These pictures are what people need to see – this is why we are fighting for the right to die.
"We don’t have to ask to have a baby, so why should we have to ask to leave the world?";
Earlier this month multiple sclerosis sufferer was thrown out of a Wetherspoons because bouncers thought he was drunk.
Last year an MS sufferer had benefits cut because she couldn't squeeze her assessor's thumb.
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