Terminally ill 25-year-old chooses to die on ‘own terms’ after battling rare illness her entire life: ‘Please let me go’

An Australian woman has decided to end her own life with medical assistance to “die on her own terms” after years of living with a rare and terminal neurological disease.

Annaliese Holland, 25, said she has been ill since she was a child, enduring repeated hospital stays as doctors tried to diagnose an illness that caused chronic pain, nausea, and vomiting — and forced her to depend on IV feeding for the past decade, she told News.com.au.

She was diagnosed with autoimmune autonomic ganglionopathy, a rare autoimmune disease in which the body attacks the autonomic ganglia, the nerves responsible for controlling involuntary bodily functions, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

Years before her diagnosis, Holland’s bowels acted as if they were blocked, despite there actually being nothing stopping them.

Feeding tubes proved ineffective as she continued vomiting, and once doctors realized her stomach wasn’t emptying, they placed her on total parenteral nutrition (TPN), which supplies nutrients through an IV to bypass digestion.

“Because of the line straight into your bloodstream, if you get an infection, it turns to sepsis really quickly, which is very, very dangerous,” Holland said, adding that she has survived sepsis — a life-threatening reaction where the body’s response to an infection damages its own tissues and organs — 25 times.

After doctors spent the majority of her young life trying to pinpoint what illness had been plaguing her, it wouldn’t be until Holland turned 18 and was transferred to an adult hospital that she would get an answer.

By the time she turned 22, she had been told her condition was terminal.

Holland’s medications have weakened her bones to the point of severe osteoporosis, leaving her in constant pain and resulting in four spinal fractures, a fractured sternum, and nearly catastrophic pressure on her heart and lungs.

“I was so miserable,” Holland said. “You can’t change it so you have to just deal with it really. Even though there’s beautiful moments in my days, they are exhausting and long. I’m in chronic debilitating pain.”

Her illness has left her watching life race ahead from a hospital room, where she spent her 18th and 21st birthdays, as her friends now marry and start families.

“Everyone’s life is moving and I’m just stuck. I’m not living. I’m surviving every day, which is tough,” she said, noting that her disease feels like “walking on a field of landmines.”

“No man wants to date someone dying, I get it.”

Knowing that her life will end, the 25-year-old said she has decided to “die on my own terms” with voluntary assisted dying (VAD) — a legal option that provides terminally ill patients with self-administered life-ending medication in Australia.

“Life for me now is getting up each day doing what I need to do medically, taking the painkillers, trying to get through the day, just to go to bed and do it all again,” she said.

“I have the most incredible team of doctors and nurses who have watched what I have been through and I told them I don’t want this anymore.”

While Holland appears at peace with the decision, her parents and sister are shattered by the idea.

“I remember talking to my dad in the kitchen one night and I said, ‘Dad, I’ve had enough.’ And he went, ‘So you’re giving up?’” she said.

She said the turning point for her father, Patrick, came when she was revived by doctors in the hospital and pleaded, “Dad, please let me go. I won’t hate you if you do.”

“I said, ‘If this happens again, I don’t want anything. And please know that in my heart, you letting me go and saying no to treatment…I’m happy with and that’s what I want,’” Holland said, fighting back tears.

“He turned to me and goes, ‘I don’t know how you do it and I totally understand that you’ve had enough.’”

Holland’s mom, Armanda, said she still hopes for a miracle, though she “realistically understands the challenges” her daughter faces.

Following a three-week evaluation process, Holland was approved for VAD.

“I think it’s so weird to be happy, but I was so happy when I found out I was approved, I was crying,” she recalled.

“It’s hard because for me I am in pain and then I am at peace, but then I put the pain onto my family. You have this battle in your head of not wanting to hurt them so I will put some thought into how it will happen.”

Holland added that she’s “lucky that I do have this choice.”

“It’s one of the bravest things you could ever do, to say I want VAD. It’s not giving up. You’ve had enough and you fought bloody hard.”

If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or are experiencing a mental health crisis and live in New York City, you can call 888-NYC-WELL for free and confidential crisis counseling. If you live outside the five boroughs, you can dial 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.

with Post wires