Active Dying Phase

We will harvest their organs now anyway

Every hospice has a handout titled “signs and symptoms of approaching death,” it details the last two weeks. Ask for it.

OP you come to DL OF ALL PLACES to ask this question? Seek help. You're desperate for attention to make up such a stupid post. Actually, every post you make is stupid.

DL may not the best place for vital info and/or sympathy. Were all you got?

listen for the labored breathing … and the eventual rattle. Then you will know.

Jesus Christ.

Ask ChatGPT.

Some of us here are depressed enough.

Wow sone of these replies are not what I expected at all. There was just a thread last month where someone got a lot of support when their mother died in hospice care.

Sometimes they feel great right before they die. That happened to my dad and he died within a week. The morphine would probably mask this.

OP, I'm sorry you're going through this. Are you alone--no siblings, close cousins/aunts/uncles? Having gone through this with my wonderful Mother in 2018, you really need someone there you can lean on, because seeing a parent die, and the aftermath, can really do a number on you.

And yes, the labored breathing and rattle are telltale signs.

Thank you, R9 for the genuine reply. I’m totally alone. I have long distance friends who are helping me but they’ve never had a parent die and are so far removed from what that all entails.

Still, better than nothing.

There’s no death rattle but the breathing is already labored due to a diagnosis of lung cancer. That’s why I’m confused. One nurse implied he was declining, and another nurse is hopeful he will improve. That’s why I’m conflicted.

When my husband was dying of cancer, I would term his gradual slipping away as a ‘shrinking.’ It seemed to me he spent more and more time in his head and less interacting or even just responding to me and his visitors. Eventually he became entirely unconscious on a Wednesday, the doctor said he could go ‘any time now’ on the Saturday, and he died early in the evening on the following Monday without regaining consciousness. The nurses said he would still be able to hear what went on around him. I wasn’t sure about that, but when we were alone I would tell him I loved him and that it was alright for him to go whenever he felt ready. On the day he died his breathing became very ragged, although no one seemed to notice that except me. And then he took two deep breaths — each held for a suspensefully long time, and when he exhaled after the second that was it.

I have decided that the brain is kind, and as our bodies are dying and organs are closing off, we go to a happy or comfortable place, whatever that is for the individual. In his last weeks he was pre-occupied with trips we had taken together and he said he was reliving them in his mind. I like to think we were together back in Hawaii or New Zealand or Italy in his head.

That’s very sweet R11 and I just started bawling.

Thank you, that was almost 10 years ago. It still hurts but less. Grief softens with time and becomes more bearable.

When you fall in love and make a commitment, it’s what you sign on for, you know one of you will go first. We just thought we would have more time. And the unfairness of that does still make me angry. While shitheads like Trump go on and on.

For OP:

What about an elderly friend who is 89 and sleeps all day long? His spouse died and he lives alone. Goes to bed 6pm and wakes up 12pm

Sorry about ur situation OP (and the classless assholes on here). My dad died a few months back. On the Saturday he was reading his newspaper, chatting away and by the early hours of Tuesday morning he was gone. I personally think the nurses move things along.

Listen to r11 OP. My mother was calling out to her parents and sisters when she was actively dying, and her voice was almost youthful! I think she preferred her dreams to her waking world, and not being asleep was an inconvenience. She sighed a lot when breathing, and apparently this is very comforting to the dying person and is not a sign of pain. I hope your parent goes peacefully as mine did. She was in her own bed in her own house, with her loved ones close by. I hope we all die so peacefully. The billionaire's death.

To lose one parent is a tragedy. To lose both looks like carelessness.

In some matters, I find it best to take the advice of a professional with direct knowledge of the matter.

OP, my dad also died on hospice care, and he just slipped easily away while we all were home with him but not at his exact bedside. I agree the nurses increased his morphine to the point I think they helped him die - maybe for the best. Keep him clean and comfortable and that’s sadly the best advice I can offer.

Once a hospice patient is given the morphine drip the fading has begun. It's different for everybody with vital sometimes holding steady yet the patient is becoming increasingly unresponsive.

Be aware that while a hospice patient may appear to be unresponsive they are often very aware of what is going on around them. Talk to them, read to them or even sing. It will be beneficial to both of you.

Read what you wrote, OP. Don’t blame people for their replies when you don’t even say who it is.

“A parent” could be anyone’s. I was waiting for the “asking for a friend” sign off.

Sorry for your troubles, but clarity counts.

Those certainly seem like some of the symptoms of nearing the end. I have always found that once the patient stops eating the end is near.

I think the default to sleeping most of the time and/or no interest in food signal the end nearing. Hospice personnel can help determine this. They will level with you. I have had three interactions with hospice with three different relatives.

R21 has it right. Many of us first learned in the bad old days of AIDS that once the morphine gets administered "for pain" then the patient is probably in the last few days.

Take care of yourself and provide your loved one your presence as much as you can.

A long time friend of 50 years developed senile dementia when he was in his mid 70s. The progression was frightening. He started becoming violent toward his wife for no reason at all and saying the most horrendous things about her and her family, people he loved dearly when he was sane. We had to call the police on 3 different occasions when he started hitting his wife. They never took him to jail (they knew what the problem was). They took him to the nearest hospital. On the 3rd trip the hospital kept him for 4 weeks pumping every narcotic they could find into him trying to curb his violent streak. it never did. Finally they decided they could do nothing more for him and told his wife he needed to go to hospice. He stayed in the hospice center for 6 weeks. He was talking and eating the first 4 weeks, calling me in the middle of the night at least once a week telling me they were trying to kill him because he'd heard people laughing outside his door. He was hearing the nurses at the nurses station that was only a few feet away from his door, in their normal routines. By week 5 he had started sleeping most of the time unless they woke him up for whatever food they could get him to eat. He also stopped talking to anyone, other than a grunt now and then to voice his displeasure at something. By the last week he stopped eating and talking altogether, and slept round the clock. Finally on Thursday of that week he finally just stopped breathing at 2am that morning.

Thank you all for the genuine comments. The reason I was confused and conflicted is because the night shift didn’t think he was entering his final stage, especially with his vitals.

However, the day shift agreed he has more pronounced apnea and it’s time to stop giving him food.

I was just trying to figure things out to prepare myself. Still, I’m perplexed about why his blood pressure is still so normal.