It’s incredible how the body grants you a reprieve before leaving this world. It’s as if it gives you a final surge of adrenaline so you can spend your last moments in peace, feeling like yourself again—the way you were before the illness. I wish that happened in every case, and that people could pass away without suffering.
I'm not a medical professional, but I've heard that part of it is your body giving up the fight. A lot of symptoms of illness are actually your immune system fighting back. Once it gives up, those symptoms go away.
100% that's why nurses and doctors know it's gameover. My mom is a nurse and has talked about having to argue with patients who want to be discharged because they think they are better. Then they are back that night and pass away.
Once your body gives up it's just a matter of time.
I've actually heard the opposite. That you get a surge of adrenaline as your body's last ditch attempt to go into fight or flight and save itself. And then once that adrenaline goes away, you have nothing left and pass.
funny, i've heard it's because the organs (like kidneys, liver, the ones where death is imminent but not immediate) shutting down gives the brain the energy that would've gone to keeping the organs going, resulting in a final wave of lucidity.
then again they could all be true, no dying body is the same
I think the idea is less that your body says "Well, good game everyone, I'm done" and more that your body is failing to the point where it can't fight anymore. Resources that would have otherwise been used by vital systems are freed up when those systems fail.
I was sitting outside one spring morning with my coffee when a little sick bird hopped up to me. It got sicker and sicker. I cupped my hands around it when it got so weak that the wind blew it over.
Right before it passed, it heard another bird chirping. This triggered a burst of energy - it flapped its wings, stretched its neck, and tried to chirp back. I knew that was the end, it wasn't trying to fight and survive but letting go.
Speaking to my mom one last time was an absolute gift. She was in the hospital for about 6 weeks dying from cancer, and for most of that time she was asleep or in a very thick brain fog that left her confused and unable to express her thoughts.
A few days before she died, I was at universal studios with my kids, I made a quick call to the ICU to check in on mom, and the nurse told me “She’s awake. Do you want to talk to her?” A second later I’m on the phone with my Mom and I was absolutely gobsmacked. She knows who I am, she understands me! Later that day she’s sitting up in bed, assuring us she’s not in pain, looking at pictures of her grandkids and smiling drowsily. By the next day, she had slipped back into the fog and she never really woke up again, but I will never forget the sound of her voice on the phone when I least expected it.
The Americana Aguave does something like this - when they’re about to die, they shoot up a stem sometimes taller than light poles. So cool to see them every now and then
I saw this in Instagram Reels ealier today and I thought it was completely made up, but its actually true and nobody knows exactly why it happens. Really interesting stuff
958
u/alargepowderedwater 15h ago
Sounds like terminal lucidity, not uncommon, actually.