'I choose not to suffer': Margaret's choice to be one of the first Victorians to access assisted dying

Now, she is facing her own mortality and knows she doesn't want to endure the same pain.

The 60-year-old retired nurse, who has terminal cancer, will be one of the first Victorians to apply for new voluntary assisted dying laws to help her end her life.

In more than 40 years working in the health system, she has comforted cancer patients when they have developed liver metastasis, causing their bellies to swell and fill with fluid, when they were bedridden, and their skin turned yellow from jaundice.

"I have such very vivid memories of how terrible a process it was and of people just suffering so greatly," she said.

The laws will come into force on Wednesday, June 19, and will allow terminally ill adults who only have about six months to live and meet other strict eligibility criteria - such as being able to give informed consent - access to a lethal substance.

The mother-of-two was diagnosed with bowel cancer five years ago and after undergoing intensive treatment, she was given the all clear.

But her world came tumbling down last May, when it was discovered the cancer had returned after a procedure on her heart defibrillator.

"Quietly over the last four years the cancer has spread all over my body and into my lymph nodes and liver," she said. "It's not a diagnosis with any prospect of a cure."

Devastation and overwhelming fear of a painful death followed.

"I felt sheer terror about the end and the journey till the end," she said. "I was just shattered. I thought 'Oh my god I am going to die one of those awful deaths that I have seen and put my family through that'."

When landmark voluntary assisted dying laws were passed last year, Margaret shed tears of relief.

"Emotionally I have just felt so much better," she said. "It's incredible the comfort it has given me."

She ceased all cancer treatment in March and has been told she could be dead within six months. Her GP and oncologist support her decision to end her life.

"My GP has put his hand on my arm and said to me many times, 'But we do really good palliative care Marg'," Margaret said. "But I know there are many cases where it is impossible to alleviate suffering. I choose not to suffer."

She finds comfort in simply having the option of accessing the lethal drugs and plans on making an official application to access the legislation next week.

A CAT scan six weeks ago showed the tumours were slowly growing.

When Margaret wakes each morning her body aches from her head to her toes.

"I'm in terrible pain so I do my stretches and I have an electric massager that I use to try and ease it," Margaret said.

She takes analgesic painkillers and stands under a hot shower before resting a hot pack wherever it hurts the most.

"It is just this incredible total body pain like I have run a marathon. It's like that but tenfold. Your whole body is crying out," Margaret said.

Margaret is no stranger to death. She had an illustrious career as a nurse at hospitals in country Victoria and Melbourne's western suburbs.

About eight years ago, she resuscitated a jogger who had collapsed at the Maribyrnong River in Melbourne's west after he suffered a heart attack.

Margaret scanned the death notices in the newspaper for weeks after believing the jogger died on the way to hospital. But the man, a retired wharfie named Dennis, tracked her down months later so he could thank her and invite her over for a champagne breakfast.

Dennis inspired Margaret to become an educator. She spent two years teaching people CPR and how to be first responders in life-or-death situations.

Margaret was also at her mother's bedside as she suffered through the final stages of Alzheimer's.

"It was a misery to watch this really intelligent woman just deteriorate," she said. "I watched my mother hold on for 11 days. This tiny little skeletal woman. She was groaning in agony."

There are moments each day where Margaret quietly contemplates the prospect of death.

"The main concern I have about dying is leaving behind my two children," she said.

"I've had 12 months to get used to the idea that I am going to die. But leaving them, I can't bear it. I just want to be around for them as long as I can."

It hasn't been decided yet whether her children, Emma, 34, and Rhys,32, will be there when she takes her own life, or whether she will die at a hospital or at home. But Emma, also a nurse, strongly supports her mother's choice.

Close friends have offered to hold her hand. She suspects her husband might want to be there too; even though they separated six years ago, they remain very close.

She grapples often with the profound loneliness that comes with dying.

"I have people tell me how amazing and strong I am all the time or they tell me 'There's still hope'," she said. "But it doesn't make me feel better. I'm terrified. People diminish how I feel when they don't accept I am dying."

Six years ago, following the breakdown of her marriage, she moved to Inverloch, a seaside town about 143 kilometres south-east of Melbourne.

She calls the 'beach shack' her dream home. Alongside paintings on the wall by her grandchildren Ava, 3, and Zoe, 4, are black-and-white photographs by renowned German photographer Helmut Newton, the legacy of her aunt Dora, one of Newton's paramours.

Every weekend her partner comes up from Melbourne and they tend to the garden.

Then there's the echidna, who finds his way into her backyard each spring, and scurries around the lawn, leaving her grandchildren in fits of laughter and squealing with delight.

She loves to walk her dog Bella, a nine-year-old Cavalier King Charles spaniel, just after it has rained, so she can smell the eucalyptus trees when their leaves are still damp.

Margaret finds solace in the teachings of Buddhism and taking her grandchildren to the beach so they can go searching for shells in the winter sun. She often puts on her wetsuit and bodyboards at the surf beach about two blocks away from her house.

"It sounds funny, but I really cherish this time I have been given to appreciate my life," she said.

"You get stuck in that merry-go-round of working and not having time to enjoy living. I've seen friends I haven't seen in years. There is no point waiting until I die and coming to my memorial. You realise how loved you are. Moments with my family, my grandchildren, are so precious."

There is a stark clarity that comes with imminent death that causes Margaret to live more deliberately. A gentle urging to find the joy and the love in everything.

Each morning, Margaret feeds a family of three magpies who swoop in and land on the wooden deck in her backyard with their beaks turned up towards the sky ready to devour bits of food she has prepared for them.

"They've decided that we're their family," she said.