I’m saving up for Dignitas, not for a terminal illness but because agonising back pain blights my life

Dream weddings, exotic holidays, a new kitchen …People save for all sorts of reasons and the end result is usually worth the small ­sacrifices made along the way.

I, too, am saving a significant sum, but in my case the ultimate goal might appear less enticing.

I have a Dignitas fund, a savings pot to cover the cost — which is about £10,000 — of a trip to the clinic in Switzerland where people go to end their lives.

That may shock you, especially as I’m not dying.

I don’t have a terminal illness like Dame Esther Rantzen, who revealed she’d joined Dignitas in case it ‘gets rough’ after she was diagnosed with stage four lung ­cancer. But I do know a life of pain, and the despair that comes with it.

‘Failed back surgery syndrome’ (FBSS) is the technical term for my condition — four words that hide 40 years of anguish.

It is defined as ‘lumbar spinal pain either persisting despite surgical intervention or appearing after surgical intervention in the same location’. Essentially, it means the medical profession has given up on me.

Those fortunate enough never to have suffered from back pain can’t appreciate just how awful it can be.

But presenter Eamonn Holmes, who at 64 is three years older than me, is one who knows. He was ­pictured using a walker at an awards ­ceremony last month, and ­complications from an ­operation for three prolapsed (slipped) discs in 2022 have left him in agony.

He said he was on ‘borrowed time’ and confessed he ‘was not OK’. From my­ ­experience, ‘not OK’ is a vast understatement and I admire his grit.

You can rest a sprained ankle or strap up a broken wrist but there is no escape from spinal pain. When mine has been really bad, I’ve taken sleeping pills just to escape it for a few hours. ­Anyone who has experienced chronic pain will have had ­periods when they’ve felt that death is surely preferable.

My issues started when I was 19 and working as a journalist on the London news desk of a regional newspaper group.

One morning I woke up with a deep pain in my lower back that radiated down my right leg.

My doctor diagnosed sciatica — in which the sciatic nerve, which runs from your lower back to your feet, is bruised or ­compressed — and put me on ‘bed rest’ for three weeks.

Afterwards, I went back to work, but the problem remained. Painkillers weren’t much help and at times I was house-bound.

Aged 22, I underwent surgery to remove two pieces of ­vertebrae and three pieces of disc, which ‘fixed me’ for 12 years.

During this time I began living with my partner, now husband, and was working on Horse & Hound magazine. I loved my job and life was good. I occasionally had a bit of pain, but mostly it was at bearable levels.

At this stage, euthanasia wasn’t even on my radar. Then in 1998, without warning, everything flared up again: severe pain, ­muscle spasm, weakness in my right leg and agonising ­sciatica. My leg and foot would suddenly go ‘dead’, causing me to fall.

I was back to square one: all-consuming pain, time off work, cancelling arrangements.

Thank goodness children were never something I’d wanted, as my consultant warned me my spine would not be able to ­support the extra weight of ­pregnancy.

So in my mid-30s, while my friends were having babies, I was back to the merry-go-round of consultations, scans and (useless) physio. An MRI revealed ­prolapsed discs, but as none appeared to be pressing on the nerve, surgery was not an option.

My consultant tactfully pointed out that I was a little too ‘heavy’. So I started going swimming ­regularly and managed to shed 4st. The back problem eased until 2013, the year I turned 50.

A new MRI revealed a raft of issues, including two slipped discs and one ruptured disc. Eventually I was prescribed ­prolonged-release morphine but there didn’t seem to be a long-term solution.

After a frightening moment when my right leg simply gave way, sending me crashing to the floor at a train station, my ­consultant diagnosed FBSS.

Not surprisingly, I was diagnosed with depression, too.

It was at this point, in 2017, that I began to think about ­Dignitas, which had become increasingly high profile.

Unless you’ve been in this ­situation it’s hard to imagine why you’d countenance such a drastic solution, but back pain consumes you.

It is debilitating, isolating, humiliating. Finding yourself as an adult sobbing helplessly because you’re in so much agony is somehow shameful.

It puts a strain on your relationships. Your partner feels useless because they can do nothing to help; your friends sympathise, but it’s tedious when you constantly cancel arrangements.

And even when you do feel able to socialise, you’re not much fun. Being in pain means you burn off a shorter fuse.

My husband, Paul, is endlessly supportive but he doesn’t have the power to stop the agony.

There was a memorable ­occasion when the muscles around my spine went into spasm, leaving me screaming on the floor.

Paul somehow managed to shoehorn me into the car and took me to A&E — a horrible experience for both of us.

All I could see ahead was pain and my world shrinking away. I was afraid I’d end up in a wheelchair or completely bed-bound. The thought of a permanent escape came ever more frequently.

I said nothing of this to friends or family, not even Paul. I was afraid they might say something along the lines of: ‘Oh, don’t be so silly.’ Many see life as ­sacrosanct, too. Whether we should be able to choose the manner of our ­passing, and the day and time of it, is a controversial subject.

I read that going to Dignitas costs about £10,000. It seemed an enormous sum, but there were times when I could see no other option.

The calm organised manner of it seemed infinitely preferable to suicide, which I think would be even worse for loved ones, though there are legal implications to helping someone travel to ­Dignitas as it’s still a crime under the Suicide Act.

I began to secretly salt away money in a savings account. It wasn’t much — £10 or £20 here and there — but within about three years I had accumulated just under £2,000. Simply knowing it was there made me feel better.

In 2019, the sciatica returned with a vengeance, forcing me to need several periods off work. Then, in June that year, I fell down some stairs, cracking a ­vertebra. It took about six weeks to mend . . . but then most of the pain was gone.

I suspect the fall either knocked something back into place, or ­dislodged something from where it wasn’t supposed to be, though during various MRI scans the scar tissue from the previous surgery obscured much of what the ­consultants could see.

Since then, I’ve been fine. I have some bad days, and if I ­forget to take the morphine I know about it, but all in all I’m OK. Not ­pain-free, but OK.

I do feel, though, that like Eamonn I am on ‘borrowed time’. Having had this problem for 40 years, I cannot believe it’s not going to return.

Meanwhile, my Dignitas fund has grown considerably. When I started writing this piece, I finally told my husband about it. He was shocked, of course, as were the close friends I’ve told since.

They hadn’t realised the extent of what I’d been going through. One said: ‘I knew it was bad, but I didn’t realise how bad …’

Paul hopes I will never get to the point when I feel I need to call on my fund. While he shares my views on assisted dying in general, he believes it should be only for those with ­terminal ­illness, or with zero quality of life, or in unendurable agony.

I hope I’ll never have to use my fund. Yet I will keep it going for when, or if, life becomes, to use Dame Esther’s term, too ‘rough’.There have been times when I have been literally writhing in pain.

If one of our pets was in that state, with no respite and no cure, we would have them put to sleep. And we’d do it because we love them; because we ­cannot bear the thought of them suffering.

I believe that option should be available to us humans, too.