Ellen O'Donoghue
Keith Barry has spoken candidly about his father's death from cancer and how he wishes euthanasia was an option for people in Ireland.
Barry appeared on the on The Grief Pod with Venetia Quick less than three weeks after his father died.
The father and son were extremely close, with Barry describing his dad as his “best buddy,” and one of the lads.
People even told Barry that the relationship he had with his father was the “golden standard” of what a father-son relationship should be, he confessed.
“He was a very pragmatic man and he passed that down to me, he was a very sarcastic individual and he passed that down to me as well, so I think that helps you deal with grief,” Barry says.
His father was diagnosed with a rare form of stage four lung cancer roughly two years before his death, having never smoked.
There weren’t many treatments for the cancer, but “they blasted him with chemo and radiation and all that kind of stuff that they do, and it worked initially”.
“It only worked for a short period of time and then they were like listen this is not working anymore then he got a trial drug and so that was kind of the trajectory of his treatment and he was on that trial drug until he passed away pretty much,” Barry tells Quick.
“The trial drug kept him alive, but he had no quality of life for a long time. I think that’s part of the grieving process right there,” he said.
Barry cared for his father as he became sicker, which “he didn’t want, I didn’t want, but it’s a role you just kind of fall into.
“My mum was obviously primary carer but helping in and out of bed, on and off the commode, there’s no dignity in it.”
Barry says on the podcast that he wishes there was an option for assisted dying or euthanasia in Ireland, especially after seeing what his father went through.
Barry’s father expressed his wishes to die numerous times, saying to the doctors and nurses that he wanted a cyanide tablet for example.
“I haven’t looked into it, it’s the first time we’ve had to go through this, but even though you want to keep people alive, you wonder to what effect, and what I mean by that is, my dad would’ve chosen to die six months earlier if he was given a choice, but there is no choice, so that’s an issue.
“My dad was miserable, the joy was gone, he kept saying, ‘this isn’t me’, and he was fully cognitively aware the whole way through until he died, so his brain was 100 per cent there,” Barry says.
“He kept saying ‘let me go’, and there’s no way you can do that in Ireland so they don’t expedite the process, but I do believe if you’re cognitively aware, like if there’s a system you have to go through where a psychologist comes in and goes ‘yeah his mind is sound’, and if the doctors come in and go ‘yeah he’s only going one way, and it’s that way,’ shouldn’t we have the ability to allow people to die in dignity in Ireland and not have to suffer?
“All my dad did for months was suffer, and then try to protect us, but by doing that he retracted into his bubble that made it hard for my mum, and it made it hard for me, and my sister.”
Barry tells Quick he grieved his father before his death and believes his father grieved himself before his death too.
