DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Title

Margaret Wolfit (1929-2008)

Authors

Lucy Amis

Date of this Version

2009

Document Type

Article

Citation

The George Eliot Review 40 (2009)

Comments

Published by The George Eliot Review Online https://GeorgeEliotReview.org

Abstract

My Mum, Margaret Wolfit (Amis) passed away on 20th September. I wanted to write to reassure everyone that she didn't suffer for long and that 2008 was a decent year in many ways. As you may know, she'd been treated for breast cancer thirteen years ago and came through well for over twelve years, but in August 2007 was re-diagnosed, this time affecting her chest. At the time (August 2007) she had some fluid drained from her lungs and was more or less fine within about forty-eight hours - indeed she was performing only a few days later. The doctors then put her on one of those new high-tech pills and through the rest of 2007 and up to and including July 2008 she was responding well to the treatment and was told that the cancer was reducing. She had a full and active year, of which more shortly, and to the best of my knowledge suffered no side-effects.

Towards the end of August 2008 she started getting very puffed. Although she fulfilled a number of social commitments in late August/early September (and got a lot of fun out of meeting up with old friends), when we both went to Majorca to get a few days of much needed sun over my birthday (early Sept) she wasn't well. On our return to the UK she went into hospital (Thursday 11 th Sept). At first we thought it was the fluid on the lung again, but on the Monday after a series of tests they diagnosed that she'd had a pulmonary embolism (blood clot). The embolism blocked the oxygen flow and caused her to need oxygen to breathe but it was thought to be eminently treatable. By Thursday however the initial treatment hadn't taken effect and they decided to move her to another hospital where they could perform a fast-track procedure. On Saturday the 20th after the move - during which she flirted with the ambulance driver - they gave her the fast-track intravenous medicine. That afternoon she seemed to be doing a little better, and her very sweet nurse - who knew nothing of her background - said she looked like a movie star! I went for a walk and to get dinner, but on my way back to the hospital I was called to say she was deteriorating fast. I was by her side less than two minutes later, but she had died moments earlier. I think she wanted to do it her way.

She had a difficult couple of weeks, but I asked her several times in the hospital if she was in pain, and she reassured me she wasn't, she just felt weak and feeble. Even in hospital she was still planning for the future - and lined up a new RADA student to mentor. It was of course a huge shock and devastating to lose her, but a blessing for her that it was all so relatively quick. On the Friday (19th) the doctor suggested to me privately that the clot(s) was/were probably caused by the cancer and that she would likely need to undergo further treatment. So I think the way to look at it is that she was spared a long, drawn out, painful end and lived a full and independent life until the very last two weeks. Not bad going for someone just short of eighty who was joking and loving to the end, and still didn't look a day over 70!