Twelve days nursing my father in the ‘dying room’ taught me the value of planning for death

Dying is difficult, a nurse told me. It might have been even more appalling had Dad not been clear about his wishes. Yet most of us remain deeply reluctant to outline how we want the end to go

My father spent the last 12 days of his life unconscious, unresponsive, in a hospital bed on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.

My mother sat beside him night and day, holding his hand. I massaged Dad’s legs, horribly swollen, the effects of oedema – a buildup of fluids. His mouth fell open, dried out; I swabbed it constantly in an attempt to keep it wet. Sometimes his breath was a gurgle. My brother and I took turns sleeping on a stretcher in his room – the “dying room” was what hospital staff called it.