In the 2015 film Miss You Already, terminally ill Milly spends her dying days in a peaceful countryside mansion, with lovely big glass doors that open out onto lush green gardens.
The room is homely, lived-in and inviting. It's a home away from home, and when Milly draws her final breath she does so in a place that is beautiful.
Natasha Welsh, 39, remembers watching the Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette film not long before her husband Derek got sick with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer that took his life in 2019 when he was just 35.
But when they were told they were coming to the end-of-life stage just 23 months into their cancer journey, the options for the young family were limited.
"You either die at home, or you move to a palliative facility," Natasha told Mamamia. "We don’t have anything like that [film] here at all. And I didn’t think I could live in the house where he died. I didn’t think it was for me."
In a palliative care facility, the couple's young son Cristian, who was four at the time, wasn't allowed to stay the night by his father's bedside like Natasha was. They looked at all the options, including renting another apartment to use solely for Derek's final days.
"But we realised it would be difficult to rent a place and not be open about the fact we were taking someone there to die. In the end, we realised we just had to pick a facility. There was one at Concord Hospital in Sydney that was newer and had these bifold doors that allowed the patient to be rolled outside for fresh air. It just made that little point of difference," said Natasha.
