Reader Discretion: The article contains mentions of suicide; please proceed with caution.
25-year-old Annaliese Holland from Australia has spent a lot of time in hospitals since she was a young child. However, medical professionals did not figure out what ailed her until much later.
“I’ve been sick since being a child really, I lived in and out of the hospital ever since I went in for nine months,” she said in an interview.
“It actually took until I transitioned to the adult hospital that we found the diagnosis, and it came back that I did have this autoimmune disease that was causing it all along,” she shared.
She suffers from a condition called Autoimmune Autonomic Ganglionopathy. The condition affects a person’s heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, and urination.
Holland was diagnosed with her condition quite late, which is what led to her situation becoming so intense so quickly. Not a lot of time passed after her diagnosis when she was not able to eat anything. She has not eaten anything in the last ten years.
She experiences nausea and vomiting every day, which makes everyday life hard for her.
“My stool would back up so much that I would throw it up or drain it out my tummy,” she explained her plight. “I was put on something called Total Parenteral Nutrition or TPN and that’s basically a bag of nutrition that’s delivered directly into your bloodstream through like, a line in your chest.”
In her life, Annaliese has undergone several operations, according to her GoFundMe page. She began the charity after she lost over 10 feet of her bowels, which led to intestinal failure.
She has now made the heartbreaking decision to end her life, with the help of assisted suicide, which is legal in every state in Australia. Since making the decision, she has been busy doing things she has always wanted to do, which she compiled in what she refers to as a ‘F*ck It List’.
One of the items on the list was to try on wedding dresses. “No man wants to date someone dying, I get it,” she said of her wish, “but I would love to try one on, see what it feels like.”
We are sending our thoughts and prayers to Annaliese and her family as they navigate this major decision. Share her story with others.
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