I watched my uncle die of cancer, we were all around him when he died (of cancer). He was heavily sedated so he wasnt awake but we knew he was taking his last breaths. My cousin was crying pleading with him not to go, that was very sad, and some family members were crying. I have never seen my dad (his brother) cry until then. Others were praying, and the seconds between each breath took longer and longer and then he took his last breath. He looked peaceful.
My father, 9 years ago this September 30. I will always regret that he never got to see his grandsons, I was pregnant 3 months after he passed on.
It was a peaceful moment as he walked on into that dark night.
Love ya, Dad.
My dad’s cousin, he died of cancer. His last week, he kept wanting the treatment, even though it was useless at that point. I knew he was going to die soon because each day his breathing seemed… worse. I was not there the exact moment (I’ve been there that morning, and arrived less than half an hour after he passed away). From what they told me, the whole family was in the room, talking to each other… when finally my aunt noticed he wasn’t breathing. He said nothing, but at least he died surrounded by those who loved and cared for him.
My wife died of ALS, Lou Gherig’s disease. It is a progressive paralysis of the motor nerves – same nerves as are affected by polio – and usually strikes people age 60 or greater. She was 49 when it was diagnosed and the usual prognosis is several years before dying. Unfortunately, in her case the diaphragm nerves were struck early on and all the literature said that once you were put on a respirator, you would remain on it for the rest of your life. She was not keen on being tied to a refrigerator-sized machine.
The Thursday before Labor Day, 1991 she couldn’t draw a breath, so I took her to ER. She went into surgery where a bunch of fluid was extracted from her lungs and from there, went on a ventilator in ICU. Saturday and Sunday, they gradually decreased the pressure on the ventilator, then shut it off and removed the tubes Sunday night to see how she’d do. She lasted fine through the night, but about nine o’clock Monday morning, began to fail.
She was conscious and cognizant of what was going on when she was told, “We need to get you back onto the ventilator or you will die.” She refused. Her last words – written on a notepad – to her daughters and me were, “Does this make sense?” She was asking us if, knowing what we knew of her and her life, whether it made sense for her to cast off and slip away rather than be tied to a respirator forever. The three of us agreed that it did.
About eleven she was unhooked from everything and moved from ICU to a hospice room in the hospital. There she lay, mostly breathing quietly with her eyes closed and someone holding one or both of her hands. Around three o’clock she suddenly sat up, looked around a monent, then settled back down. I think that is the last time she was truly conscious. Her breathing was never labored as such, but pretty shallow, and slowly grew farther apart.
Her older daughter, husband, and I slipped out for a quick bite to eat, then came back so the rest could go. About fifteen minutes after they left, seven o’clock or so, she took a breath, let it go . . . and the next never came. No big sigh or anything, just no inhalation. Her daughter and I, who were holding her hands, glanced at each other, then at the husband, who fetched a nurse.
She was the second child her parents lost; a younger sister died in her thirties from leukemia. NO parent should have to bury their children.
DD
I do a lot of palliative care. I have been beside many people as they die and declared them dead.
Most people place the highest premium on keeping the patient comfortable. Most of my patients have terminal cancer. They die with regular and slightly generous doses of narcotics, anti-nausea drugs, steroids and scopolamine, all tailored to suit the situation. Sometimes they get intravenous fluids, but often they don’t.
People often die sleeping, but many still have a moment of lucidity the day before they go. I try to help them die with dignity. This is hard when death is so often undignified. Peace be with them all.
I was with my dad when he died of prostate cancer. It had spread all over, even though he fought it for 2 years. We had taken him to Hospice, and he was only there for a week before he died. The last 3 days he was unconscious for the most part, then his feet and hands turned blue as his circulatory system broke down, his breathing slowed, he took one last deep breath and that was it. The weirdest part was that I felt him leave the room. There was a presence, and then there wasn’t. I also felt something like extreme joy wash over me, and I suddenly knew he was okay and not in pain anymore. Maybe I was delusional, maybe it points to an afterlife… I can’t explain it. It wasn’t what I was expecting at all.
I did get my Hollywood ending I guess. The last few days he didn’t speak, and wasn’t really aware of what was going on. We talked to him all the time, but he never answered. There were a few brief moments when he’d open his eyes and realize we were there, but then he’d slip under again. I told him I loved him as I was leaving and he said, clear as day, “I love you too.” It was the last thing he ever said. My mom was really upset that he only spoke to me, and I think she thought he’d wake up and give some big speech during his final moments. I think movies condition us to believe that things like that happen, but in the end, it’s nothing like real life.
My father, cancer, September 2001. The last 2-3 weeks he spent at home on a bed in the cleared-out dining room. The last time he appeared lucid was about two days before the end, but he was unable to talk. Most of the rest of the time he was heavily dosed on morphine and did not seem aware of his surroundings. He went about 11 in the morning on the 16th.
This has been a very difficult thread to read.
At the hospital with Dad
He had lung cancer.
His brain was oxygen deprived.
He was awake calm but hallucinating. He kept trying to catch those gnats.
We wheeled to a waiting room where he looked out the window until it got dark.
He was watching the lake. He saw ducks,duck hunters school kids and a school bus and said “those kids better stay away from that water.”
All was nonexistent except the lake.
He was unconcious but fighting for air when he breathed his last.
My dad had been an invalid for years, ever since he’d broken his hip. Slowly, he began to waste away, losing his strength and his faculties little by little. My mom had put him in a home but the care he got was quite bad, so my mom oversaw his care 24/7 from home, with regular nurse & therapist visits. One night, she called me and said that she didn’t think he had much longer. There had been other false alarms in the past, and he had always been very strong, but there was something different about the tone of her voice this time.
I drove all night and got there first thing in the morning. I spent about an hour alone with him, holding his hand and talking to him. He hadn’t said anything coherent in months, and didn’t seem to recognize anyone anymore (except sometimes Mom). I took a nap from the all-night drive. A little after lunchtime, my Mom woke me and told her she thought it was time. She stood on one side of the bed, and I the other, just stroking his hands & forhead and softly talking him through it. He wasn’t on any drugs and wasn’t suffering from anything terminal–he was just old (93) and his run was over. Toward the end, it looked like he did know what was happening and did recognize both of us, but it’s impossible to say for certain. He didn’t say anything; his last act was to close his own eyes. And that was it.
I have been at several deathbeds in my life- two grandmothers and my father.
My father’s mother had the worst time of it. She had rheumatic fever as a child which damaged her heart valves. She had had valves replaced twice, and the second time she died on the table but was brought back. Later she contracted an infection in her lower bowel, several feet of which had to removed to contain the spread. What followed was 8 months of watching a woman slowly die. She could not speak because of the ventilator, and no fluid had passed her lips that entire time. We would often sit with her and try to apply chapstick to lips that were literally cracking off her face. She had good days and bad days. On bad days, she was only semi-conscious. On good days, she would write notes on a pad of paper. The last two months of her life the only message she would write was “I want to go home”. The day she died we noticed what a nurse called “the laugh before the lightning”- it means a period of increased vigor and lucidity just before death. She made eye contact and attempted to speak. Then she fell asleep and several hours later the hospital called and said she was gone.
My other grandmother died at home after suffering through Alzheimer’s for four years. At the end she was incoherent and had lost all control over her body. My family and I cared for her with the help of a night nurse. The morning she died, she never woke up in the morning and around 10 she sort of shuddered and gasped and was gone.
My father died quickly, with no warning. My mother called frantic one evening around 7 to tell me dad was sick and an ambulance was on the way. I only lived a short drive away at the time, and when I got there, he was lying on the floor with his eyes open and Alka-Seltzer dribbling out of the corner of his mouth. My mother said after dinner he had indigestion and took an Alka-Seltzer, and then he made a “weird noise” and collapsed. I felt his pulse and checked his breathing and he was dead. I closed his eyes and the EMT’s showed up 10 minutes later. Massive heart attack- he was probably dead before he hit the floor.
When I die, I want to die like my father, fast, and with no warning. I do not want to linger in pain like his mother did. It is one of my greatest fears.
Its 12 hours after my last post.
I can see to type some more.
After his trip to the waiting room we went back to his room. he got into bed and the family gathered around.
We left about 11.00pm.
After we left he decided he was going home.
He had to be restrained.
He got worse quickly.
His breathing became more labored.
He lost consiousness.
We got a call about 5:00am to hurry to the hospital.
Quite a shock.
Mom and my brother had stayed with him all night.
He was struggling violently for air.
The struggles became less and less violent.
You could hear the mucus choking him.
Mom would talk quietly to him and that seemed to quiet him.
It was around 7:15 when he breathed his last.
It was horrible to watch helplessly as he struggled but he was a fighter.
Somehow it seems fitting that he would not give up without a fight.
He was struggling almost violently for air.
My Dad. 5 years ago. Cancer, lung, mets to liver, bones, etc. Similar to most of the other elderly with cancer already described.
A friend. Car accident. 1969. I came up on the wreck right after it happened, recognized her car. Ambulance was pulling up as I stopped, ambulance driver and firemen were everywhere. They were trying to free her from the car, but the entire engine had been pushed through the firewall of her car (an old Chevy that had a zillion miles on it) and into her legs. She was pinned in and bleeding to death. She saw me and screamed for me, so the cops took me to her to see if I could help calm her down and make it easier to get her out. I leaned through the mangled car door and held her as she bled to death. She talked about whether she’d be off crutches by graduation the next year, and about prom in a wheelchair. Every time they made a major shift in the stuff holding her in the car, she’d scream and stiffen, and finally, she quit doing that as she just ran out of blood and died there in the car. This seemed like it went on for hours; it was mere moments, according to the police.
The drunk that hit her head-on (he’d turned onto the wrong side of a divided street) was driving a cement truck because his wife had taken his car keys away for driving drunk the night before. Her car didn’t stand a chance against something that size. When I grabbed an axe from the fire truck and took after the guy, over half the cops there were not inclined to stop me. One finally did, but not before I whacked the drunk upside the head with the side of the blade. I really think that if I could have lifted the thing properly I could have killed him as he sat on the curb.
I was 16. The police thought I was older (I looked much older, enough that I was never carded, even at that age) and when they found out, they panicked, as they should not have let me do what I did. They wanted to provide counseling. I just wanted to stop smelling blood.
The one thing my friend said that wasn’t about getting out of there and getting well was “I don’t want to be a traffic accident statistic about bad teenage drivers. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
The drunk SOB got 6 months for involuntary manslaughter. Marcie’s Mom committed suicide, and her Dad had died in Korea.
He killed a family, and got 6 months. She became a “teenage driving” statistic.
I often wonder if there had been a Compassionate Friends group, would Marcie’s Mom have not killed herself? Compassionate Friends is an organization for people who have lost a child to death of any kind.
A wonderful group It doesn’t matter if you’re baby was still born or your 65 and you child was 45 they’ll welcome you with open arms. When your courage is gone they’ll lend you their’s and prop you up. Between me, my sister, sister-in-law, niece and three cousins our family practically has it’s own chapter.
My aunt was dying of fever of unknown origin. She was in her final hours when I arrived at the hosptial. She wa heavy on morphine and I was stunned when she asked me to brush her hair for her last day. She was in and out of consciencess. I sat with her for a long time. Blood was coming up her throat you could see it and hear it. She cleared her throat and asked me if it was still raining outside. There is no way she could have known that it was raining so I thought she might have had an out of body experience.
I prayed with my aunt and asked her if she ever asked Jesus to be the Lord of her life and she said no. I then asked her to pray with me and we would together ask him to be her Lord and Savior. She made the sign of a cross and I said repeat after me
Jeus come into my life. And she said Jesus. I repeated it again but all she could say was Jesus. I told her it was alright that he knew her heart and he was present.
I sang to her and then I knew it was time to go.
I was the last person to see her alive. She died 2 hours later.