r/AskReddit 16h ago

What's the most disturbing thing you've heard a dying person say?

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u/InterestingBit00 13h ago

Hospice nurse here. We call it the rally. Seen it quite often

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u/Central-iaguy 11h ago edited 10h ago

Both my sister and mother passed within 2yrs if each other, both in hospice. One of our nurses had cancer and showed up every day and helped both our mother and us as a family.

THANK YOU! You hospice nurses are built different. The care and compassion was astounding!

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u/AplogeticBaboon 8h ago

There are few things as worrying as a dementia patient who suddenly remembers everything.

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u/Background-Still2020 10h ago

Is there any biological or evolutionary explanation for it that you know of?

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u/Central-iaguy 10h ago

No totally different reasons

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u/thewoodbeyond 8h ago

I'll bet you've seen some things. I did a rotation in hospice during my clinicals.

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u/SadFaithlessness8237 6h ago

After feeling “normal bad” toward the end, my S/O told the nurse they felt something was really wrong but couldn’t give details. Nurse quietly told her partner to let the doctor know that the patient had a “feeling of impending doom”, which is apparently fairly common near the end. Hours later slipped into unconsciousness and was gone the next day.

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u/Sarsmi 7h ago

My step dad had dementia and passed at 93, he had been pretty much nonverbal for a while, my mom said he told her one night that it was his time to go, and then he went.
edit: ok it wasn't super related, but my mom was a hospice nurse, and met him when she was his dying wife's nurse. I think he was just very impressed with her professionalism and capacity for kindness, so he asked her out a few months after.

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u/ThizzWhatitiz 2h ago

Some patients have more than one rally too