If you've seen someone die, what happened? (TW: trauma, loss, death, terminal illness)

[HangingOver]

This is quite difficult to write, as I have OCD and, ever since I was small, it has relentlessly latched on to the idea that if I talk about the idea of a loved one dying, write it, or even think the words, that it will somehow cause it to happen and it will be my fault. Therefore, like a lot of people, I imagine, I try to completely avoid talking or thinking about it at all, and if you have similar issues, I'm warning you in advance this thread will upset you.

But here goes, inspired by all the talk about dear Deborah James and her latest news, I wanted to try to talk about it becasue I really, really fear death and never talk about it with anyone IRL.

The thing that got me thinking this morning was a very clever and kind sounding palliative care doctor on Radio Five Live this morning talking about what generally happens at the end of someone's life in a hospice. She made it sound quite gentle, slow and peaceful and made sure to point out that physiological changes, such as changes in breathing patterns etc. aren't signs of distress, they're more involuntary noises of unconsciousness that the person doesn't know they're making (like when you snore, I guess).

I know she's generalising and of course this is what most people want to hear...and perhaps it is what happens for a lot of people...but that wasn't my experience of losing my Mum AT ALL. At least, it was up to a point, but at the actual moment of death, having been unconscious for many many days, she bloody 'woke up', for about 30 seconds. She appeared to be crying (or at least her eyes were heavily watering) and basically suffocated in front of us while seeming to stare at me with a terrified look in her eyes.

It was so, so, so bloody awful and I will never get over it. I can still see it in my mind's eye with absolute clarity. I feel so so sorry for what she must have been feeling in that moment. I've spoken to two friends who also lost a parent who was about the same age (60-ish) and they have said the same thing; and also said that they weren't aware this was a thing that happened and it was an awful shock.

So what gives? Were our relatives just unlucky or is this actually more common than people realise? Or is it actually all purely physical and she wouldn't have know anything clutching at straws-

I've googled it but most people seem to refer to a 'non-peaceful death' as one where the person was very upset towards/about the end of their life, rather than this 'waking up' thing.

Sorry in advance for starting possibly the most depressing and awful thread imaginable! I just find it so difficult to talk to anyone IRL about becasue of aforementioned problems (this has taken a long time to write as you can imagine!!)

@BonjourCrisette sorry that you are going through the process with a parent now, I hope they pass well.

I was with a man who had been beaten and left lying in the road when he died.

We did CPR but it didn't help, he was mostly unconscious but a little agitated, then did one loud death rattle and that was it.

He is still the only person I've ever seen die and there was no mistaking what that sound meant.

My father has terminal cancer so this thread has been incredibly helpful for me. I worry a bit about his eventual passing but it’s a difficult subject to raise.
Thank you for starting this thread OP, and thank you so much to everyone who has shared their experience.

When I was 15 I was doing my work experience at a florists which was right next to an underground station, they had stuff outside and I was watering the plants at the top which run along side the track, someone jumped in front of the train whilst I was looking in that exact direction. To be honest I was actually okay. But the lady standing next to the person wasn’t.
i also witnessed my nan collapsed against the kitchen door, my mum was the first to see her and then me and I had to pull her down to start cpr before my bf and brother came to take over. My mum was distraught so I took over the call with 999. It’s something I see everytime I walk into the kitchen. The image is stuck in my head on a back burner for whenever I walk into the kitchen which is about 100 times a day. I’m okay with death, I think it’s because obviously I knew my Nan so it makes it that much harder to forget the details. I’m so thankful the kids never saw her like that especially as they were very very close with her. And as a kid that’s not something you want stuck in your memory.

Thanks got starting this thread OP. Reading your post resonated with me- the waking up and suffocating bit was something I’ve recently seen in the final moments of a loved one. I’ve been with a few people as they died and this was the hardest (but also the closest to me).
The death at 99 and some very premature baby deaths I have observed were very peaceful.

In my dads case the machines slowly counted down until the nurses switched them off (when I got panicky and upset because they suddenly started to fall very quickly and I was only 18) and he remained unconscious the entire time.

With my grandad he was clearly distressed and in pain as the doctor hadn't prescribed the palliative medication that he said he would. He was crying whilst unconscious and almost but not quite thrashing around. I had to beg the care home to ring the rapid response type people who okayed a second dose of morphine. He then calmed and remained unconscious. About 5 mins before the actual end he finally opened his eyes and looked at me but didn't respond or make any effort to do anything - then his eyes closed again and a few moments later he took his final breath.

Lots of love to everyone on this thread xx

I watched my Nan pass away and it was the worst thing I’ve ever witnessed, she suffered. She had widespread cancer and the tumours in her lungs started to break up causing her to basically drown in her own blood. She couldn’t move because the doctors said if she did then she would of just bled out in seconds, tbh I think that would of been kinder because she was in pain and tried to fight to the very end, il never forget the fear in her eyes and she was honestly the bravest woman I’ve ever met. My aunt died in a similar situation, but the nurse who came out to her (she was at home not in hospital) refused to put in a syringe driver because she wasn’t “thrashing around enough” my aunt had advanced MS aswell as terminal cancer so could barely move at the best of times, I remember shouting at the nurse and now definitely wouldn’t want to die at home as I felt she wasn’t given the comfortable death she deserved.

FIL has recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer so I’m dreading what’s to come for him.

My Dad, brother and FIL all died in hospital during the night.
Id visited Dad the afternoon before and he was sat up in his hospital bed reading a newspaper and drinking a can of beer. The male nurse had brought two cans in for him after dad said he was gagging for a beer (after getting the all clear for the beer from the doctor)
I’ll never forget that mans kindness, he said to me, he can have a beer, it won’t do him any harm but it’s doing him a power of good. My last memory is of looking back as I left the ward was to see dad propped up reading his paper, looking over his glasses and raising his can to me and winking while taking a sip. “See you soon chicken”.
we got a call the following morning to say he’d died peacefully in his sleep.

My brother had the laboured breathing, I knew he didn’t have long as soon as I heard it.

I've got to say I attended 100's of deaths as a nurse over 20 years and I never saw anyone die conscious, not once.

I watched my Nan die. Her breathing just slowed down until it stopped. Nothing dramatic or scary. She had been 'asleep' for days. We were all with her. She was extremely ill, and died way too soon (only just in her 60s).

I missed my grandad's death. His was quick, and I found him.

I'm not sure which would have been better, a long, slow, probably painful but eventually unaware one with your family around you.

Or an instant one where your family have to find you which shocks them massively. He wouldn't have suffered though. Or been aware of it either. Although he was found with a hot water bottle which makes me think he'd got up feeling a bit under the weather.

My grandmother was unconscious, and just slowly stopped breathing. Very peaceful.

Gosh, this is a very interesting thread.
I had a very close call with death (twice).
The one I’ll mention was when I was due to give birth to my first full term baby. She was due on 24 December. Afternoon of 22 December I had agonising pain etc. Hospital midwives wouldn’t let come in. Eventually they did.
I vomited from pain on the way in.
Got to the hospital car park. I felt an incredible surge of peaceful energy. I knew my baby was dead.
Sadly I was right.
I was in the hospital in agony, on morphine etc for many hours before I started to feel very very happily sleepy. Not like normal sleepy.
The door burst open at that point with the doctor saying they’d made a mistake, I was haemorrhaging massively etc. Honestly I already knew that (but they wouldn’t listen).
Im here to tell the tale - but it was very close. I know because before the emergency c-section they told me I’d lost all my own blood.
it’s weird but I’ll never be afraid to die again

I was with my mum when she died. She just drifted off as if she were going to sleep and her breathing gradually became shallower and shallower until it stopped. It was entirely peaceful.

It really does vary. I worked in palliative care and have been with several people at the end of their life, and each was different.
I'm so sorry for everyone's losses and the traumatic experiences.

I phoned the hospice a couple of weeks ago but they need GP or hospital referral. I’m taking Dad to a GP appointment next week so we’ll have a chat then. Reading this thread has confirmed for me that hospice care would be best for him.

My mum had been in a hospice for about 6 weeks - COPD - she'd been eating well and had picked up a bit but TBH - no one - not even she thought she would live long. She couldn't put any weight on - breathing burned off so many calories. I had popped in after work to see her earlier in the week and she sitting up in bed (on oxygen) chatting - breathing laboured as normal. I popped in again and she was lying down, breathing was shallow, hard to tell how conscious she was - I;d seen her like this before - I was not expecting her to die at all - well - not at that particular moment, that night but that's exactly what happened. I was chatting to my dad sat opposite me on the other side of the bed and my dad just checked her pulse as he wasn't sure she was still breathing - he couldn't feel a pulse which again was no surprise it often took a moment to find one - I couldn't find it either and her very shallow breathing appeared to have stopped - my dad went to look for a nurse to check on her - it was a very quiet was to go. My dad became upset which is normal for him - I felt totally calm and a great sense of relief - absolutely no negative feelings at all. She had been ill for decades - since I was about 16 - bend double coughing - unable to get her breath until she had had a cigarette. I tried on several occasions to ask her to stop but she always reacted very badly to these attempts - she was 69 and weighed less than 4 stone - her eyes sunken - she looked like something out of Belsen concentration camp. In many ways - I had been prepared for this as an ending for most of my life - it wasn't a surprise - I was happy for her when she died and wouldn't have given her another day of life if I'd had the power to do so - she had no life at all - it was ruined by smoking and all the health problems that follow on from that. I know she was happy to go to - she had even tried refusing all food and medication for a while while in hospital - she'd had enough. My kids were 10 and 12. My mum missed out on them going to uni and everything else. TBH deep down I never had any sympathy for her - it's a shame it ruined her life but it was her decision to smoke and although it's an addiction she never made any efforts to stop, never wanted to and wouldn't even discuss it - I'm not angry about it - I have no feelings about it - it's what she wanted to do - no one really has the right to tell anyone else how to live their life. Anyway - it was as quiet and uneventful a death as I could imagine and for me - not emotional at all - just a great sense of relief that it was all over.

I had a near death experience when I was 15 (little did I know but I had sepsis caused by a ruptured appendix) I was at home and I heard the doctor say ‘she needs surgery tonight if she is going to survive’ and then he walked away I see the clock which said it was about 11pm.
As he left I had this warm feeling come over me, and I just knew I was dying and literally nothing in the world mattered, nothing. I didn’t feel sad or happy or anything just nothing ultimate calm, very much like the moment you crawl into bed and are on the cusp of sleep. I then fell straight to sleep. I woke up in hospital to a lot of nurses & doctors around me and it was completely different like I was not going to die anymore.

My mother had emergency major abdominal surgery a few years ago and whilst they were putting her to sleep she suffered a cardiac arrest. She said that everything went quiet, the bright lights above her head, dimmed, everyone moved in slow motion and she felt calm like it was all ok, nothing to worry about.

She woke up in recovery and they explained what had happened.

We both have some hope that when the end does come it is similar to what we have experienced because that isn’t anything to worry about.

sending a hug to all that needs it on this thread 💕

Mmm, my mum died of blood cancer and it was reasonably peaceful in the days running up to it. Looking back on it, it was peaceful .... at the time I can remember googling things like 'How can you tell if someone is dying'. She had been in and out of hospital but the treatments were just prolonging things and not in a good way. In the end she said, if I get worse again please don't take me in there. So we didn't and after a few days she did just quietly die. I was relieved for her. It is exhausting being ill, and it looked so exhausting for her.

Thank you very much. It's dementia and so rather unpredictable but my parent is slowly declining with dips and occasional crises so it's only a matter of time (they've been bedbound for over a year now). Death has been very close a number of times and we have all the end of life medications at home for when they are needed. It's just very tiring, really, for my parent and for all the rest of us.

It is so good to read others' experiences as it does make me feel a bit more prepared for what is coming.

My mum died of sepsis. I missed her passing but when I walked in to the room she looked so peaceful. I regret missing her death. I wish I could have held her hand and told her that I loved her. On my way to the hospital after they called, I knew she had gone. I stopped rushing because I knew I was too late.

@Abstractedobstructed @Puddingcake

I'm so very very sorry 🌷
Can't imagine the pain. Wishing you all the best and sorry words aren't enough

My mum died in a nursing home with cancer. I got the call in the evening to say they didn’t think it would be long now, rushed there and was with her when she died. I know she waited for me. Her breathing was quite shallow, she took a gurgling, rattling long breath and then just stopped. I didn’t expect angels and harps playing but there was nothing - she just stopped like a clock that stops ticking.

My dad died of cancer in hospital. I visited him the evening before he died and he knew I was there, was talking but then started to become confused. He died a few hours after I left. Just as I know my mum waited for me to arrive, I know my dad waited for me to leave.

My aunt took two days to die. Awful, hard, rattling, gasping breathing for two days. Never opened her eyes or moved except for yawning. Obviously trying to take in air but it looked like she was about to open her eyes and wake up although, of course, she didn’t. She also brought up loads of the dark brown fluid. They kept her head to the side so she didn’t choke. It was awful. She had a syringe driver to keep her comfortable and I hope it was enough. I went home late afternoon on the second day and she died that evening. A carer was with her and said the end was very peaceful. I hope so.

Thank you OP for a really interesting discussion.

The vast majority of deaths are peaceful, so I've been told. I nursed my late DH when he had a diagnosis of motor neurone disease which was heart-breaking. There was a fear (and a worrying, nasty rumour) that people who suffer this illness will choke to death which not inevitable. He drifted away peacefully with just a few shallow breaths, a very few which were a little deeper but not at all distressing, and then a peaceful, calm cessation of breath.

He died in a hospice (which was his choice) with wonderful care from kind and very dedicated staff, having discussed end of life care beforehand. Although I'd do anything to have him back alive and well without that rotten illness I can say that he had a 'a good death' which is a comfort. Small comfort, but comfort all the same.