Die Smiling: A Memoir: The Sorrows and Joys on A Journey to Dignitas

Told with wit and candour, Julie Casson traces her husband Nigel’s extraordinary journey
from diagnosis of motor neurone disease to his death.

Successful businessman and father of three, Nigel battles the degenerative disease with
boundless courage and gritty good humour, until, faced with the unimaginable torture of a
slow, living death – his spirit crushed, his body a tomb – he takes control. He decides to go to
Dignitas to end his life, while he is still able to die smiling.

The family prepares for this enormous logistical and emotional challenge: the gruelling
Dignitas process and the eight-hundred-mile road trip to Switzerland. They complete it with
pragmatism and humour. Denying the disease its victory and choosing his own cure, Nigel
dies happily, in the arms of his wife and children.

This is a thought-provoking and deeply moving book, where love, family, dignity and choice
conquer adversity. It sits in the heart of the debate on assisted dying and raises questions
about the right to put an end to suffering and the right to choose how life should end.

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