She was happy. Exuberant infact! She had the calendar on her bedside table.The same countdown calendar she used for Christmas. The date was the 25th. If it was a Christmas countdown, then today would be Christmas Day. If she was a kid she would be looking forward to opening her gifts. But she was not a kid, and it was not Christmas Day.

It was the day of her death and she was feeling very jolly. The nurse was scheduled to arrive at 2pm. And Jane would be dead by 3:15pm if all things went as planned. Give or take.

She had gone through the whole process with the voluntary euthanasia program.

She made plans to see Australia. A lifelong dream come true. Then she wrapped up her tour of Australia in Victoria. A perfect ending if you asked Jane. She needed to die. And what better place to do so than in Victoria.

Today She felt the old familiar pain in every muscle of her body. It was like a confirmation that her decision to die was the right one.

“Hello darkness, my old friend” she whispered. An old tune she felt captured her over a decade struggle with chronic pain.

Jane never lost her sense of humor even after she lost her job, friends, marriage and independence. She held on to her sense of humor like a drowning woman holding on to a life raft in the middle of the ocean.

On her worst days when the pain zipped through her body and made her feel like she was being tasered by an over exuberant police officer, she would listen to Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd. On those days no amount of painkillers seem to impact the pain at all. It was as though the pain had decided its own purpose for the day and it was determined to achieve that. So Jane would try meditation. Accepting the pain and trying to go into a state of zen-like co-existence. Because the pain was in charge and Jane was just there, along for the ride.

On nights when she could not sleep because the pain had decided it was going to ravage Jane’s body and steal her sleep, Jane would listen to Chokehold by Sleep Token. She needed a distraction or to feel like these musicians understood her deeper than anyone else. So her Spotify playlist was more medicine to her than her fentanyl patch, her morphine pills or her Tylenol PMs.

Jane felt excited. She couldn’t wait for the day to begin. This was the day she would die and it was the best day of her life!