A woman backing a campaign to give Scots the right to die says her father-in-law begged to be shot as he suffered a slow and "undignified" death from motor neurone disease.
Sue Adlam-Hill's father-in-law Eddie Scott died following a protracted battle with the disease - best known for its association with astrophysicist Stephen Hawking.
In the last year of his life proud grandad Eddie lost the ability to eat, drink, speak and walk, ultimately becoming locked inside his own body.
The lifelong lorry driver, described as a "fit and healthy man" prior to his diagnosis, begged his relatives to find a way of getting him to Switzerland to end his life on his own terms and spare them further agony.
But the 72-year-old became too ill to make the final journey and suffered a "terrible" death just 18 months after being diagnosed with MND.
Sue, from Aberdeen, told the Record: "As Eddie’s decline continued, he more than once said that he wanted to be shot before things got 'really bad'.
"He’d ask us if it was fair that he’d be left to suffer more than a pet dog.
"And there also came a point where the pain was so bad that he thought about suicide.
"He didn’t commit suicide - he had so little movement by then, it would have been almost impossible in any case - but the fact he even mentioned it shows the depth of his suffering."
His family is backing the Dignity In Dying campaign to introduce assisted dying laws in Scotland that would enable people with terminal illnesses to legally end their lives.
New research by the campaign group estimates that around 650 people in the UK take their own lives each year, with thousands of others making attempts at suicide.
A private member's bill introduced by MSP Liam MacArthur, which received over 10,000 responses after being put out to consultation, could see the practice legalised in Scotland.
Recalling her father-in-law's diagnosis, Sue said: "We were on holiday with him and his new partner - he loved sunshine - when he mentioned cramps and pains in his legs, but we didn’t worry too much.
"And then one day some weeks later he called us, and he was talking with a really slurred voice.
"He was scared. We thought he’d had a stroke."
A few months later Eddie was diagnosed with MND.
Doctors fitted a valve in his stomach so he could be fed liquid food and over the next year his body betrayed him: his legs weakened, forcing him to adopt a walking frame and later a motorised wheelchair.
He also lost the ability to talk and move his arms. Eventually, he couldn't move at all.
Sue added: "He was given a little machine that he could use to spell out words: 'drink', or 'toilet'. But that was hard work because he was losing movement in his hands. In the end he couldn’t talk or move.
"Eddie spent his last months lying mobile on a hospital bed in his living room, needing constant care and support and unable to speak. He was in pain.
"Despite some wonderful medical professionals, carers, family and friends - and especially his loving partner - he suffered painful, undignified, terrifying final months."
Eddie considered travelling to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland to end his life as MND took hold, and his family got as far as completing the paperwork before his condition made him unfit to travel.
Sue has backed the Dignity in Dying Scotland campaign to legalise the right to die for those who are seriously ill to spare others from the fate her father-in-law met a decade ago - along with his first wife Sylvia, who suffered a painful death from cancer in 1995.
She continued: "Of course we had mixed emotions - it’s never easy to talk about death - but at the same time there was something so positive about hearing Eddie planning how he might want to manage his final days.
"It gave him back a sense of control, and helped him focus his fear. He wasn’t afraid of dying - but he was afraid of weeks of suffering without being able to communicate to anyone.
"Good palliative care can offer many terminally ill people what they need. But in some cases palliative care isn’t enough.
"Having seen two terrible painful, distressing and undignified deaths, my family and I believe that assisted dying is a choice that all terminally ill, mentally competent adults should have."
She added: "After Eddie’s death we became increasingly frustrated that he hadn’t had the option of an assisted death in his home country.
"We also know that we want that option for ourselves should we become terminally ill.
"To us it’s a choice that all terminally ill, mentally competent adults should have.
"It offers dignity, choice and most of all, it reduces unnecessary physical and mental suffering.
"It still upsets me so much to think how different his final weeks could have been."
Frances McFadden, of Dignity in Dying Scotland, says Liam McArthur's proposals would give terminally-ill Scots the option of a "kinder, safer death".
The Lib Dem Orkney MSP's proposed Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults Bill suggests that two doctors must sign off on a proposed assisted death and that the person wanting to end their life has the mental capacity to make the decision themselves.
It would also require the dying person to have "a period of reflection" after signing a written declaration - and to administer the life-ending medication themselves.
McFadden added: "How we die matters, and I hope that MSPs will listen to the voices of their constituents who so desperately need this change."
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