Anyone been beside someone on their deathbed?

In My Humble Opinion
21

My mom had lung cancer and congestive heart failure. During the last few months of her life, she was losing blood (they never did find out where the blood was going, cuz the doc said it wouldn’t make any difference if they found out, and I didn’t want to subject her to the tests), and needed 2 blood transfusions per week. Finally, a time came when she could no longer sit up for me to drive her to the hospital for transfusions. The doc said she coudl stop getting the transfusions, or go in an ambulance for them. Mom asked what would happen if she stopped getting them. Doctor said her heart would work harder and harder to pump what blood there was, and she would soon go into heart failure. She signed a DNR/No Heroic Measures paper and decided to discontinue the transfusions. Just about two weeks later, she said “I can’t breathe” I stayed by her bed and held her hand. Minutes later, she was dead. Having had her diagnosis some months before, she had been preparing herself for death.

Seeing a parent die is a natural thing. The circle of life and all that. I can’t imagine losing a child.

22

My father died of lung cancer at home. He wasn’t a smoker. He knew he was dying months before the end. At the end he was in a come. The hospice nurse would come everyday and say “He can’t last through the night”. That went on for about 5 days. My father always said he’d fight to the last, and he did, even though he was in a coma. The cancer had spread to his brain. The night before he went into the coma, his b-i-l, my uncle, asked him if he’d like to get a bath the next day. My father said “I think tomorrow will be too late.”, and it was.Those five days his breaths had such a pause in-between that each breathe we didn’t know if it would be his last.

His last night, my mother, my siblings and I knelt and prayed the rosary by his bed. Then my mother got up and got a beer (she didn’t drink beer, but my father liked a cold one after working in the yard, that sort of thing) popped and and raised it to him. He died just after the toast.

No one was begging him not to go - by the time death came, it was something we were all praying for, for his sake. My father accepted the fact of his coming death with strength and dignity, even through the indignities of being helped to the bathroom and being bathed.

StG

23

I held my 6 year old daughter as she died. She had battled cancer for 3 1/2 years.
she had been in a sort of sleep for a few days. That morning she kind of came out of it and ate a little and drank some water from a syringe. She quitetly talked to her brothers and sister.
Then she slipped back into semi-contiousness.
That afternoon, her eyes focused on me and she said “daddy” that’s the last thing she ever said to me.
That evening her breathing became more shallow and I called in my wife. Naomi began to gently convulse like she was fighting for her last breath. Then she relaxed and the last air escaped her.
No last words. I whispered goodbye to her and my wife and I held her for a long time and cried.

I hope this is discriptive enough for you. Did you have a reason for wanting to know or just curious?

24

omg. I’m so sorry, Roadwalker

25

My grandmother - about a month ago.

She found out she had colon cancer about a year ago. She had a colostomy followed by radiation and chemotherapy which she got through without much trouble - she was is good health and her doctor said the cancer was gone.

About two months ago she developed a hernia around the stoma that threatened to block it off so she had to go in for more surgery. The surgery went fine and she was to stay in the hospital for day to recover. After the first day she still wasn’t quite ready so they decided to let her stay a few more days.

We got a call one morning that she was in critical condition from a heart attack and if we wanted to see her we should get to the hospital immediately. She was on a respirator and her blood pressure we critially low.

We were able to talk to her that morning but I’m not sure how much she understood - she couldn’t talk because of the breathing tube and I’m not sure her hearing aids were working well enough for her to hear us well.

They checked her out during the day and found out that her intestines were impacted which was causing the low blood pressure which was part of the cause of the heart attack. I had to authorize emergency surgery to clear the blockage and remove any tissue that had died due to circulation being cut off due to the blockage.

The doctor called a few hours later and said that there was nothing he could do. He had started the surgery but found that her bowel was dead. He considered removing the bowel but her small intestine was dead as well. At that point he called off the surgery and made her as comfortable as possible.

We all went to the hospital to see her but she wasn’t awake and never did wake up. We went home a little before midnight because we had to put our kid to bed but my family called about 2 AM to say that she had died. They said it was very peaceful - her vital signs just stopped and that was it.

I know she was pretty scared that morning but I’m not sure if she thought she was going to die. I think she might have suspected it. But there were no last words - it was very calm - and while it started out being unexpected we knew it was coming in the end.

I find it so comically wrong that she made it through a colostomy, radiation, and chemotherapy only to die from what in the end was severe constipation. It seems so wrong to die from poo.

26

My mom died of lung and brain cancer in November 2000. It was a long and drawn out event. I hated every second of it, but wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

I got The Call on Election Day 2000, and travelled the 130 miles in near record time. Turns out I didn’t need to rush, because it took a week to happen. I did a vigil with her, mostly for the company, nearly the entire time. Friday night she started to rattle, and the minister came by for a blessing (if we were Catholic instead of Lutheran, it would have been Last Rites). Late Friday night, the rattling quit, and she was mostly out of it, but not from the morphine.

Saturday night, she was pretty much in a coma.

Sunday morning, my sister was sweeping the carpet, and noticed Mom was awake. We had about two hours with her, with her being alert and responsive, but too weak to talk. All of us said our goodbyes to her while she was awake.

When she slipped back into her coma, something changed. Her eyes were sunken back and had dark rings all the way around. My impression of her was that of an unwrapped mummy. She also started gasping for breath. The gasping continued until she finally expired Monday night. The end was like a fade out at the end of a song; the gasping got slower and further apart until she gasped no more. My sister, BiL, and two different pairs of aunts and uncles were there, also.

I surprised myself with my reaction. Sister and aunts were teary and sniffing; I felt Mom’s neck and wrist for a pulse, and held my hand to feel for a breathe, and announced “My watch says 6:55…”, then went out to call the home hospice to send someone over to officially pronounce her.

As far as the original question from the OP, she knew it was coming, and we had 4 months to talk things out after the doctor said there was nothing more he could do for her. She was at peace, and wasn’t too scared of what was coming. I don’t remember what her last words were, because that happened the previous Thursday. I do remember vividly that she thought Algore was a bastard for what was going on with the Florida election.

For those of you who happen to hold the idea of an afterlife, a soul, and all that stuff, it’s definitely my opinion that her soul departed Sunday morning, after her last lucid episode, and the clinical death we saw Monday night was her body catching up. I’m not the biggest Jeezer around SDMB, but I certainly lean more that way than towards the atheist viewpoint because of this. I also hope that when my time comes, it happens faster than hers, but aslso that I leave with 1/10 of the class and courage she had.

27

My grandmother one year ago. Complications of pneumonia. She was only barely conscious and slightly berathing on her own.

Her 3 children and we the cousins were around her hospital bed. We all held hands and prayed that her passing would be quick and painless. Not one minute later, she shed a tear and stopped breathing.

No fancy words or quotes, but I’ll remember it vividly until my time comes.

28

i had a patient one day come into the ER with increased heart rate. Increased enough that he was sitting and sweating head to toe. They gave me him mulitple drug to bring it down with no suscess. After a few spells of his heart almost giveing out the doctor told the man that we where going to shock him to attempt to reset his rythem. They discussed the risks posed with this type of procedure, includeing death. The older man said “ok, do what you have to. i’ve lived a good life, it will be ok.”

i was floored. totally speech less. I couldn’t imagine being told that you might die in a few seconds and he was totally at peace with it. I’ll never forget it

29

One of my best friends had two massive strokes last year. He was in his early forties, healthy, young, funny as hell. I’m the godfather to his now-8 year old daughter. His wife called me from the hospital when they first got there after the first, and I went along and waited with her, my goddaughter, and his brother for two days.

He never regained conciousness. We sat beside him and chatted, held his hand, reminisced. It was odd seeing his brother, who’d I’d not seen for a few years: his brother was my ex, and how we’d first met. The first day was tough, his wife quietly hysterical, trying hard not to frighten her daughter but a real mess, it had been so unexpected that she simply couldn’t cope. I sat with him while his brother took his wife off to calm down in private every so often. I sat squeezing his hand and talking to him, joking. I told him that it was annoying me that I was telling him some of my best jokes and was getting no response; his hand flexed very slightly in mine and that was enough to convince me he could hear us and was aware of what was going on around him. The nurses said this was likely, that he probably was vaguely aware so it was good he had his family with him and that we weren’t afraid to talk to him.

The second morning, he had a second stroke, bigger than the first. The doctors told us that he was dying and it wouldn’t be long. We sat with him with the windows open, and although it was autumn sun started shining through the window onto the bed, warming him up. His colour had gone, his lips had a blueish tint, his mouth open and drooling. The doctors explained that, in this situation, the body dies from the outside in, so even when he appeared to be gone his hearing would still be working. So we kept talking, it was almost nice. Very peaceful, exactly what he would’ve liked. His daughter sat on his bed and read him her favourite book, it was great that she wasn’t scared of him, as I remembered my Granma dying of a stroke when I was around the same age, and remembered feeling that this weird, pale, unmoving thing was not my Granma and that I couldn’t even look at it, let alone speak to it.

His heartrate slowed right down, we kept thinking it had completely stopped and then it would beep a couple more times a minute or two later. We figured he’d died a few times before the last, when the beep didn’t come again. His hands were freezing cold by this point. His brother took his wife and daughter out of the room and I waited with him while the doctors did their stuff. I was surprised to see that he’d soaked the bed through, it was another reminder that I’d just experienced a body shutting down stage by stage. Looking at the body, it wasn’t him anymore, just a thing.

It wasn’t long afterwards that my father also suffered a devastating series of strokes. I turned up at the hospital expecting the very same scenario. He survived, although he is nothing of the person he once was, it’s wholly changed his personality and he’s now severely disabled. He’s had a couple of mini-strokes since, and in a way, I think both my mother and I are waiting for the last which we both feel is coming soon. But he’s on meds which appear to be doing their job, so we could be wrong.

30

Did the person know they were about to die?

At the time, they were unconscious. When they were transferred to the ICU two days earlier, they knew they probably wouldn’t survive.

Were they calm or in a panic?

Calm and as upbeat as a person can be knowing they have just a couple days left until the time they lost consciousness.

Do you remember what their last words were?

No - they were on a ventilator for most of the time they were in ICU.

Was it unexpected or known it was coming? Be as descriptive as posisble.

They knew. They were an ICU nurse (oddly enough, from the same ICU they died in) who acquired HIV through needlestick while caring for end-stage AIDS patients. 14 years ago, HIV was invariably and rapidly fatal.
And something you never see in TV or movies - when someone dies, blood stops moving and the person’s skin rapidly turns a mottled purple-greenish color.

31

I disagree. Perhaps we differ on what you mean by rapidly. Or perhaps this happens in HIV?

We were around our son for hours after his death and I don’t recall him ever turning green and purple after death.

32

Curious more than anything I would say. I have been fortunate enough to never have had to go through anything like you and so many others here have recounted, but I know that at some point in the furture I will. It seems that in most cases, the person lapses into a coma, so although they dont officially die after they lose consciousness, their last chance for words comes a few days before. I always figured that those scenes in movies were dramatized, as it seemed unlikely that one second someone would be speaking to you , alert as ever, and then a second later flatline.
I know that if I was the one slowly slipping away, only able to listen and not respond, I would want some music playing in my final moments, rather than having someone talk to me.

33

I’ve probably been there for a couple dozen deaths in the past year, both for my own patients and in my capacity carrying the code pager for the hospital. At many of those, I’ve been the one to “call” it.

This is a weird concept to get your head around. In these cases, there is no real “moment” of death–there are moments when their hearts stop beating, or when they stop breathing, but we continue those things for them and try to get things started again. The “time of death” comes when I (or the other docs) decide that we’ve done enough. They’re not any less dead a minute before I call it, or any more dead a minute later.

I could write about this forever (and I have written an awful lot about it in my blog). I’ve thought a lot about death this year, as any intern just about has to, and especially since I’ve decided that I’d like to devote a big chunk of my future career to hospice care.

Dr. J

34

My sister died of Colon, Lung and Brain cancer. Just minutes before she died she was peaceful, but in the past. She was talking about getting her kids ready for school, but her children, who were around her bed, were young adults.

A few minutes later she looked toward the ceiling and had the most peaceful look on her face. She smiled like she recognized something or someone. She started humming a hymn(and none of us can remember which one it was) and then she was gone.

The last words my dad said to me were “I love you.” I can’t think of anything more valuable he could have left me.

To those of you who have lost your children, I am so very sorry.
My loss is nothing compared with yours.

35

I was with my dad, holding his hand as he bled to death and five years later with my mom, holding her in my arms as she died from breast cancer.

I would do it again, but I admit it was pretty stressful. The only saving grace with my mom was that she was so peaceful as she slipped away and it was really wonderful to see her out of her pain.

My sister passed away this last November, also from breast cancer and I spent many hours lying in bed with her talking, and just holding her, trying to help with her fears. She also looked at peace when she passed.

All three knew they were going to die, and although I didn’t want them to suffer, we took the time to make sure nothing was left unsaid.

I can’t think of anything worse than having a child die. I’m not sure I’d be strong enough to deal with that pain. I’m sorry for your pain Roadwalker.

36

My grandfather was dying of renal failure at 88 years of age.

We took turns sitting with him so he would never be alone. He stopped talking as his breathing became more laboured.

He turned on his side and curled into the fetal position. I sat facing him, put my face close to his, closed my eyes and made a silent wish for peace for him.

When I opened my eyes, he was looking at me. To my astonishment, he winked.

He slipped away peacefully shortly after.

37

As an oncology nurse working on a hospice floor at a hospital, I’ve seen a lot of deaths. The overwhelming majority of them were deeply lethargic or comatose and just simply stopped breathing. No last words, no impression that they were aware of their situation.

There were a couple that didn’t follow this trend.

One, a young woman with advanced breast cancer, bled to death in about a 30 seconds after her pulmonary artery ruptured. She was awake, lucid and terrified. So much blood, a terrible way to die.

My mother in law died in the next room sitting on the edge of her bed. She had fallen getting up to the bathroom and needed help getting back to bed. She was talking, drinking water and seemed perfectly fine. Suddenly she said “I can’t breathe” and slumped forward. I caught her and eased her back onto the bed. She was already dead. The medical examiner said she died of a massive heart attack.

38

My brother was born with transposition of the great vessels, meaning that his heart plumbing was hooked up backwards. He survived because the hole between the chambers of the heart, which ususally closes at birth, did not close.

At 10 months he had what was called the mustard procedure, which fixed the transposition issue. At five years old the doctors discovered that the previous procedure had damaged his sino-artial node, the part of the heart the helps regulate rhythm.

He had a pacemaker installed December 13, 1981 at UVa hospital in Virginia. This is a relatively minor procedure (compared to open-heart) and they thought he may be well enough to go home for Christmas.

The only problem was that (the numbers here are approximations) his heart was only responding to the signal when the pacemaker was turned up all the way, which meant the battery would have to be replaced in 4 years instead of 7.

He was home for Christmas.

On January 10, 1982 we went to UVa for a routine checkup and they were amazed at his recovery. They wanted to use his case in a textbook and were able to turn the power on the pacemaker back to about 40% of what it had been. This would greatly extend the battery life. FYI, you would have never known he was sick if you were not told. He looked and acted like a 5 year old.

On January 11, 1982 he said he did not feel good. Mom called the doctor and he said to come in in the morning, there was no need for alarm.

He died at home a few minutes later. We were all getting ready for bed and he looked at my mom, groaned and fell over.

I had just learned first aid in the Cub Scouts and my dad had just completed a class at work through Bell Atlantic. We gave him 2 person CPR. He would exhale each breath that we gave to him, at least it seemed. Then the breaths started to wheeze out with no pressure behind them and he vomited a brown liquid. It was a this moment I believe he died.

The ambulance came and the took over. My parents went to the hospital and I went to my grandparents house, where I fell asleep. My mom woke me up at 3am and said, “Baby, Kevin is dead.”

He had no concept that he was dieing. And we did NOT expect it, in fact we were riding on a high from the good news the day before. He didn’t say anyting at all, and was immediately unconscious.

Lawyers descended on the family and there was talk of a lawsuit. The pacemaker had to be sent to the FDA for evaluation. Ultimately my family decided not to take legal action.

In 1995 a box about 5" square arrived at my dad’s house. In it, to his horror, was the pacemaker with the leads that attached to Kevin’s heart coated in dried blood.

39

I’ve read that hearing is one of the last senses to go.
I had The Nutcracker playing softly in the room when Naomi passed away.

40

Oh my God. Thats utterly disgusting.

This thread has pushed me to the verge of tears several times, but that one thing completely disturbed me.