Terry and Judy met in Winnipeg in 1970. Terry was attending school for CN Rail and Judy lived in the city; they met at a house party. They were engaged within three months and married in a year – that was 53 years ago. They moved to Edmonton with Terry’s work where he was an assistant manager at a locomotive shop for 35 years. Judy worked at Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in an administrative role, and they drove to work together for years. Terry says, “If you can make it through that, you can make it through anything.”  

They lived on four acres of the family farm for 33 years and raised two wonderful sons who have married, and they now have two beautiful grandchildren.  

They both retired at 55 with many plans to enjoy life and travel. They moved to Spruce Grove in an over 55 complex and built many close friendships with their neighbors. Terry was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at 60 but despite the diagnosis they still made plans and even travelled to Europe and Australia.  

More recently, Judy was not feeling well; it took almost 6 months of tests and doctors’ appointments for her to be diagnosed with a terminal cancer. She told the kids and eventually told Terry when the symptoms got worse. This was tough news for Terry because Judy is his primary caregiver. This prompted many conversations about the future and what they would do, including medical assistance in dying as an option.  

Judy said they vaguely followed MAID legislation in 2015 but learned much more about it when Judy’s father had MAID at the age of 89. He did his own research and decided MAID was a good choice for him based on his conditions. “It was a wonderful, peaceful passing. It’s your own choice of the way you want to go and to end suffering; choice is the best thing.”  

Terry and Judy had separate MAID assessments with different nurse practitioners and doctors. They told the assessors right from the start that they were planning to do this together, they wanted to be transparent about this unique circumstance.  

They were informed that it was possible that Terry could be assessed in Track 2 which would involve the 90-day assessment period and Judy wasn’t sure if she could hold on that long, but in the end, they were both considered Track 1 and received the four approvals for medical assistance in dying.  

The next task was to inform family members who were obviously sad about what was to come but eventually came around to understand the decision.  

At the time of writing this piece, Terry and Judy had not set a date for their MAID provisions. They are planning a big family Christmas and all three of Judy’s brothers will come for a visit in January.   

When the time comes, Terry and Judy will go to a nearby hospice for their MAID provisions. There will be two separate teams for the procedures, but they will be together in the same room. Terry thinks the first day of spring would be a nice day to schedule.  

“This hasn’t been a scary decision; we’ve both very much been at peace since we learned of our approvals. I didn’t want to leave Terry behind, and he didn’t want to be alone, so this is very important to us. We want others to know that this is an option at their end of life if it makes sense for them.”