Lessons Learned from a Personal Loss Part 1

In the latest episode, I share a personal experience of losing my aunt after her two-week stay in the ICU. 

Despite being familiar with medical procedures from my volunteer work, seeing a loved one in that setting was different. I remember walking into the ICU and hardly recognizing her.

During her last days, the hospital ensured her comfort, although it was tough seeing her struggle. I had discussions with the palliative care team and understood the gravity of her condition. 

Reflecting on this experience, I realize how knowledge and preparation eased the process for both my aunt and me. Being informed empowered me to navigate difficult decisions, even though they weren't mine to make, I was able to advocate to have her wishes followed.

As her condition deteriorated, we allowed nature to take its course. It's a reminder of the importance of palliative care and having these conversations at any stage of illness.

Ultimately, we liberated her from the medical interventions that sustained her life. It's a term I learned from my mentor, Ali, which reframes the act of letting go as setting the person free.

This experience has taught me the significance of being present during the end of life, embracing the discomfort, and finding solace in the knowledge that we did our best for our loved ones.

Next week I will finish up the story about my experience.

The episode of Seeing Death Clearly with my mentor Alison Kepple https://www.buzzsprout.com/2092749/13062233 

Transcript

[00:00:00] I was hopeful, but I was also realistic and I think that's okay to have both. I don't think we need to give up. Welcome back to Seeing Death Clearly. I'm your host, Jill McClennen, a death doula and end-of-life coach. Here on my show, I have conversations with guests that explore the topics of death, dying, grief, and life itself.

[00:00:23] My goal is to create a space where you can challenge the ideas you might already have about these subjects. I want to encourage you to open your mind and consider perspectives beyond what you may currently believe to be true. This episode is going to be a little different today. Two days ago, my aunt died after two weeks of being in the ICU, and I'd spent a lot of time with her for the last two weeks.

[00:00:52] And she died while I was holding her hand and talking to her. And so today's episode is going to be a little bit different. I feel actually kind of strange recording this. I'm not trying to gain anything by sharing this experience. I want to record it and share it with you as really a testimony to how End of life can be for people and to talk about what I learned, what I would have done different, what really went well overall.

[00:01:28] It was a good experience. I wish I could thank every person at Cooper Hospital that was there. The staff there was really amazing. And the timing's really interesting too, because we'll kind of backtrack a little bit. Some of you that listen regularly might already know this, but I've been volunteering at a hospital up in North Jersey, Robert Wood Johnson Hospital, and it's over an hour away.

[00:01:57] So I don't get up there too often, and probably in November, this is March right now, and probably in November, I had talked with My mentor at Robert Wood Johnson and asked her if anybody knew someone at Cooper Hospital where I could maybe start volunteering because Cooper Hospital is about 10 minutes away from me, which is a big difference as far as my commute and so Allie, my mentor.

[00:02:27] Found another palliative care doctor at Robert Wood Johnson knew a palliative care doctor at Cooper Hospital. And so they kind of set me up so that I was able to connect with the doctors at Cooper and start volunteering. And so my aunt was, they live about an hour and a half south of me in New Jersey.

[00:02:54] And she had to get transferred to Cooper Hospital. And she was in a medically induced coma, and she was intubated. And, you know, I knew, as a death dueler now, with all of the experiences that I've had, especially at Robert Wood Johnson, that that's not really a great thing for somebody her age. And she got transferred on a Friday and that upcoming Tuesday was my first day volunteering at Cooper Hospital.

[00:03:28] So one of the first people I visited as a volunteer at Cooper was my aunt. And I don't know, I just thought that timing was interesting, but that was one of the things that I really was very grateful that I was able to be there. And that's one of those things too, where after volunteering, especially at a hospital for a while, you get used to seeing people.

[00:03:56] With these different treatment options, right? Intubation or people that are in the ICU that are maybe unresponsive using different breathing machines. And it's just very different when it's your family. When I walked into the ICU room and I saw my aunt for the first time, I actually didn't recognize her.

[00:04:22] And I was startled by how she looked and I kind of kept it inside, you know, I didn't want her to see that because she was awake. She had two women that were kind of working on some of the different things around her bed. And she was awake and she, Did look at me and I spent the next two weeks with her as much as I could any spare time that I had, I would go and I would sit at the hospital for a couple of hours and I'd read to her and we were able to spend a lot of time together.

[00:04:57] But it's one of those things where. She was 78. It was actually her birthday the day that she died, which was a whole nother thing that I thought was really interesting, but it wasn't a tragic death. Like it could have been really tragic if we had not been able to make sure that her wishes were followed.

[00:05:23] Her and my uncle had had a lot of conversations. That she didn't want to be intubated again, she did not want chest compressions, and she didn't want some of these things that can make it really traumatic for everybody involved, but I'll talk a little bit more about that. And on Tuesday, the last day that I Visited her that she was awake at all and alert at all that same day.

[00:05:50] I was volunteering at the hospital and I visited with a teenager on the same floor that she was on that it had an accident of some kind. And we were having conversations with the family about what to do because. There was no way that this person was going to survive, and that's tragic. So I know that this is not tragic.

[00:06:17] She was 78, she lived a great life. It was time at that point, but even knowing that it was time, it's still sad, you know, like it was still a sad situation. And really the last two weeks, the hospital did an amazing job of keeping her as comfortable as possible. She didn't seem to be in a lot of pain. She didn't really seem to be suffering greatly.

[00:06:45] But it was, it was uncomfortable for her at times. She was not able to talk very well with the different, so when they put like the oxygen in your nose, which people usually I think can like visualize where they put the little tubes in your nose and the oxygen's blowing through, but can really like dry your mouth out.

[00:07:05] It could dry your throat out. And so she was just not comfortable. Overall, I think she was fairly pain free and I, again, spent a lot of time with her and we were reading and It was really lovely, but I know when I had first said to my son that Aunt Karen was in the hospital and that I was going to go visit her, he asked me, was she going to die?

[00:07:38] And I tried to be honest when I said, I don't know. Well, actually the first thing I said, and him being him, the way that we interact, our family has an interesting sense of humor sometimes. I said, well, of course she's going to die. We're all going to die. And he was like, I know that, but like, is she going to die right now?

[00:07:55] And I said, I don't know, because I didn't know. And that's where this experience as well taught me how no matter what your training is, no matter how prepared you are, Even when I had Barbara Carnes on my podcast a couple of months ago, she had said how she just, you always think you have more time, even when you're trained, you know, she's been in hospice longer than I've been alive, honestly, she started in hospice in the 70s.

[00:08:33] And. Even she was not sure how much time she had left with her husband. So, I don't feel bad about being unsure, thinking that there was more time. You know, I have a friend that is also in end of life care. And when I had said that my aunt was in the ICU and that I was visiting with her and I had said to my friend that I was hopeful, but realistic because there was part of me that was like, she's not that old.

[00:09:07] 78 is old, but it was like, she could get better and live another 10 years, another 15 years. Like it's not impossible. So I was definitely hopeful. But I was also realistic. I sat in the room with the palliative care team and had conversations with them and had conversations with families. And I know that at that age, the treatment options can be really hard on a person's body.

[00:09:44] It's not going to be like a 20 something year old that can recover easily from a lot of these things. So I was hopeful, but I was also realistic and again, I think that's okay to have both. I don't think we need to. Give up. And she did look better for a couple of days until she didn't. And it was one of those things too where.

[00:10:13] I had been with people right before they died. I'd been in the hospital and I'd sat with people and then I'd heard later on like, Oh, they died an hour or so after. Or I was in a room with someone who had just died, where I went in and I sat with this person and their husband. Really, I went in to talk to the husband.

[00:10:38] So I'd been with people before they died. I'd been with people after they died. But this was actually the first time I'd been with somebody as they died. And I had really actually wanted to be there for both of my grandmothers. When they had died going on 15 years or so ago with my one grandmother and probably 13 years with my other.

[00:11:04] And I wasn't able to be there for a variety of reasons, partially because I didn't know to ask the right questions. I didn't know a lot of different things at that time. So I wasn't there for either one of their deaths. And I really wanted to be, I wanted to be there with them. But so part of what I wanted to talk about.

[00:11:22] In this podcast episode is that the knowledge and the preparation that I had leading up to this experience really did make the experience easier for me, and it really did help make the experience easier for my aunt. I know they talk about knowledge is power. And it really is the truth that when you understand something and you could make educated decisions, it really will help you to feel more empowered through an experience that, again, no matter what, I was still sad.

[00:12:06] It was still my aunt. I was not, like, happy that she was dying, but I felt really good making the decisions and I felt good making the decisions. And even though the decisions weren't up to me, they were up to my uncle, but still having those conversations and asking the questions and explaining to him what was going on.

[00:12:30] I felt good being able to do that for my uncle. My family. And a lot of that, I really have to thank again, my mentor Allie at Robert Wood Johnson, but really the entire palliative care team there. I've learned so much from being with them. And I felt really confident asking questions and Allie, actually, I kept messaging her kind of through the entire thing just to check in and say like, kind of, Hey, like, this is what's going on.

[00:13:04] And actually. The episode of my podcast that was supposed to come out the day that I'm putting this one out was with, or is with, because I'm going to put it out after this one, and his name is Hank Dunn, and he, uh, is a hospice chaplain, and he wrote a book, I'm going to grab it because I have it right here, Hard Choices for Loving People, CPR, Feeding Tubes, Palliative Care, Comfort Measures, and the Patient with a Serious Illness.

[00:13:39] And because of books like Hank's, and because of My training with my Death Duel inventor, whose name is Jill, and because of my time at Robert Wood Johnson with my mentor and all of the staff there. I really was able to better understand the conversations that were being had, the questions that were being asked, the questions that I needed to ask, because death doesn't have to be traumatic.

[00:14:15] And I know from these conversations and I know from things that I've read that when my aunt's heart stopped, if we hadn't had the conversation that she did not want chest compressions, she would have gotten chest compressions. And I know from conversations and from reading books and learning from the people that I've learned from that chest compressions on a 70 year old.

[00:14:48] Is going to be traumatic and not just traumatic for her, but it's also traumatic for the staff that has to give chest compressions to a 70 year old. And so I felt really confident being able to have these conversations back and forth. So that we were able to avoid any unneeded trauma, really, for anybody.

[00:15:15] And so, again, she went into the hospital two weeks ago. And when I visited with her the first time, I, when I was a child, my Aunt Karen used to buy me books. For like birthdays and Christmas and you know, all the different holidays and it's one of the memories that I really have is part of my love for reading came from my aunt Karen, because she bought me books every year.

[00:15:49] And so what I did was I went to the library and I got a couple of the books that I know that she had bought for me because I remembered them. And I happen to have a couple of books here, one of which was the copy that she had put for me 20 something years ago, God, probably 30 something years ago now. I forget how old I am.

[00:16:11] And so I just brought some books with me and she was Awake, she was conscious. She was not able to talk very well. So I didn't want her to have to feel like she needed to have a conversation with me. So I brought some books with me, and I let her choose which one she wanted to read. And out of the five books that I brought, she chose A Wrinkle in Time, which happens to be one of my favorites, which It was nice.

[00:16:43] It was nice to be able to read this book with her. But I also was able to bring some extra books in. I stopped by my friends in Camden. There's a non profit called The Free Book Project, um, that my friend Tom runs. And he now has like a little space that you can go to. He sets up what he calls like book arcs all around, um, And he also sets up tables and he gives out books to people.

[00:17:14] And so he just loves getting books out in the community. So I stopped by and I got some books from Tom and he gave me extras that I left in the waiting room, which was really awesome. I was able to leave a stack of books there and I had checked in with the nurses and they were like, yeah, you know, it should be fine.

[00:17:31] And I'm actually going to work on trying to get something set up there permanently. And I realized how much she would really love that because she was there, because I got books for her, that that's what gave me the idea to have the extra books and to try to get something set up and again, books to her were really important.

[00:17:53] So I thought that was really special. I thought that was something that she would really love. But so. I had visited with her again a couple times for the last two weeks. And I sat with her and I read to her. And I gave her ice chips, because that was the only thing really that was able to help bring her some comfort, you know, and her mouth was kind of dried out.

[00:18:19] So I was able to feed her some ice chips, but she wasn't able to eat at that point. And we were still talking with the staff about trying to get her into a rehab and trying to get her to a point where her breathing was better, that she'd be able to breathe on her own and that she would be able to eat again.

[00:18:37] And then. So again, there was that hopefulness. And the last time I saw her awake this past Tuesday, she looked better than she had. Um, she had gotten some of her color back, her face filled in a little bit more, but they had not. Allowed her to have ice chips anymore because they were worried that she was going to essentially like breathe some of it in and get it in her lungs.

[00:19:08] And then that can cause some problems. And so she couldn't have any more ice chips. She still wasn't talking very well. She wasn't breathing well. And she just said to me she was tired. And I realized now that I think she was tired. She wasn't just tired that she wanted to rest, you know, I said, okay, Karen, I'm going to come back on Friday and see you.

[00:19:34] I'm going to spend a couple hours with you again. Just get some rest and I'll be back. I think she was tired. I think she was done. Because that night. Was when she had started to have some more breathing problems and they needed to put her on in a different machine where she had a mask over her nose and mouth to try to force oxygen in and the next step would have been to intubate her again, which she didn't.

[00:20:10] At that point, we knew she did not want, she had signed a DNR, DNI, which is the do not resuscitate, do not intubate, basically saying, don't intubate again, don't do chest compressions. I know it sounds really harsh. To say, do not resuscitate, but really it's more allowing natural death. That's the way a lot of people may all have been trying to use the language to say, just allow natural death.

[00:20:44] But I didn't know that Tuesday night she had gotten a little bit worse and her birthday was on Thursday. And so my mom was like, well, if she's looking better, why don't, you know, We both go to the hospital, we'll stay just for like 15 minutes. We wish her happy birthday. I'll bring her her card. And so my mom and I got there Thursday morning and I took one look at her.

[00:21:10] I was like, oh, this isn't good. And at that point I had gone out under the hallway to talk with the nurse and I had met up with somebody from the palliative care team. And she said they had just been in to visit with her and we were going to try to set up a goals of care conversation, which when, so palliative care is really not understood in the sense that I think a lot of people, even the medical community thinks that palliative care is almost like hospice.

[00:21:57] And that you only call palliative care in at the end, when somebody's dying. And that's not really the case. When palliative care comes in to have a goals of care conversation with a family, it can be done at any stage of an illness. It's really just to talk about specific treatments, the intensity of the care that you want, planning for future care needs, and if she was going to maybe go to a rehab, what would that look like?

[00:22:37] And so when I went back into the room, one of the palliative care doctors that, again, I just recently started volunteering with, I actually still don't even remember her name, I recognized her face. She came into the room and at that point my mom and I were talking about Getting my uncle up here. It's an hour and a half away.

[00:23:01] He doesn't walk very well. He uses a walker. He's 83 he's certainly not young and He hadn't been to the hospital yet. And so we talked about how we were gonna get him up here and she said well We can't do tomorrow. Tomorrow's too last minute We're gonna have to wait until Monday and I looked at the doctor and both of us You realized that we couldn't wait until Monday.

[00:23:27] But even then, there was still part of me that thought I had more time. I was like, okay, we'll have the meeting tomorrow. Maybe talk about what we're going to do from there. Maybe she will still get moved to rehab. Like it, it's Part of me knew that that wasn't going to happen, but then the other part of me was really still Unsure like this could happen.

[00:23:51] So we need to plan for it. We need to have these conversations and so my mother and I left the hospital and I called my cousin. I called my uncle we arranged for a meeting With palliative care to do the goals of care conversation on Friday morning, my cousin was going to drive down from Boston. So it was going to just be the four of us, four of us meeting my uncle, Bob, my cousin, Gordon, my cousin, Shanna, and me with the palliative care team.

[00:24:33] And we had the meeting set, but before I had left on Thursday. I had said to my aunt's nurse, can you please call me if anything changes? I really don't want her to die alone. And I gave her my cell phone number and I went home and I actually, months ago, had had a podcast interview scheduled. My friend Meg has a podcast, The Art of Being Human, and I'd been on Meg's podcast, I don't know, probably a year, maybe even two years ago, and I talked about being a death doula, because most of the time when I'm a guest on somebody else's podcast, I'm talking about Being a death doula, what that's like, you know, explaining it to people, but she decided this year that she was going to do a different format.

[00:25:33] And she was going to bring on two guests that didn't know each other and just let them have a conversation about a topic that she chose. And so we scheduled this podcast interview, probably Two months ago. And so, you know, I'd set up this meeting for my family the next morning and we had this podcast scheduled and I had said to her when we first got on, just FYI, I normally would turn my phone off during a podcast interview, but I did give the hospital my cell phone number and told them to call me, but I think in my head, I really didn't believe it was going to be then.

[00:26:10] I thought maybe it was going to be Friday night. I thought my Aunt Karen was probably going to make it through the night and be able to Had this meeting that the family would come and they, we'd have this meeting and we'd have this conversation and maybe it would be Friday night. Maybe it would be this weekend, but I still wanted to give her a warning anyway, because I felt kind of rude.

[00:26:32] I was like, in case my phone goes off for something else. And she said, you know, of course, totally understand. And so I'm in this podcast interview and I'm interviewing with a guy who's a comic book artist. And so we're just talking. We both play roller derby. So like we're talking about playing roller derby and our derby names and just laughing and having a conversation.

[00:26:58] And then my phone rang and I saw that it was Cooper Hospital. And so The doctor that was visiting with my aunt had called me and she said something along the lines of that she had stopped breathing and the only way they were able to keep her breathing was to kind of like move her jaw around a little bit and kind of like hold this mask to her face manually.

[00:27:29] And. The only thing that we're going to be able to do after that would be to intubate her, which we know she doesn't want because she had signed the DNI and the DNR. And even me in the position I'm in with the knowledge that I have, and I don't know everything. I am certainly learning a lot as I go. I still was like, unsure of what she was saying to me.

[00:27:55] And I was like, so I need to come now, you know, like, are you telling me I have to go right now? And she was like, well, you probably should come soon. I don't know if you can wait until tomorrow morning. And I just wanted to be like, so you're saying she's going to die. And I know that they can't. tell me that information that it was like, yes, she's going to die soon.

[00:28:22] But I tried kind of clarifying. So I got to come right now. And she was like, well, I don't know, you know, when, like, but yes, come sooner than later. And so I have the clip of me getting back onto the Zoom call and my friend Meg shared it with me. So I am going to drop it in here. I'm going to have to go.

[00:28:49] I'm sorry. It's okay. And so are you okay? She, is she gone? Uh, not yet, but they said probably sooner than later. So it's okay. Thank you. Just go. I appreciate it. I'm sorry. It's okay. Sending you big hugs. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. We'll be in touch. Okay. And there was definitely something that was interesting about being able to be recorded and look back on it because.

[00:29:18] It kind of does feel a little bit blurry now. Like I know that I was on that call and I know that I talked to this doctor. I can't really remember exactly what was said. I can't really remember what happened, but I know I just said, well, I have to make a couple of phone calls. I have to drop my kids off.

[00:29:36] My husband was in Chicago. He was away on a business trip. And I said, I just need to get some things together, and then I'll be right there. And I called my mother, told her. I must have called my cousin Gordon, or texted him. I don't even know what I did, but I basically Talk to the family somehow and I said, you know that I was going to the hospital and that this was That's probably going to be it.

[00:30:11] And so I hopped in the shower real fast because I knew that if I was going to be there overnight, cause I didn't know how long it was going to take, you know, I was in my head trying to plan this out. I'm like, all right, I got to actually pack a couple of things, you know, like I, I, I Should have had a bag packed.

[00:30:29] Why I got home and didn't pack things that day. But again, I think I just assumed it was going to be the next day. I assumed it was going to be this weekend. Part of me still was thinking, I don't know, maybe she's going to recover and she's going to just go to a rehab and It'll be okay. You know, I don't know what I was thinking or not thinking.

[00:30:49] So I threw a couple things in a bag, took a quick shower. I grabbed a wrinkle in time again. And I was like, well, I'm just gonna go and I'll stay all night if I have to. And I'm just going to read to her because I wanted to make sure that she knew that I was there, that she was hearing my voice. And I dropped the kids off.

[00:31:14] I called my husband because at that point I was like, I don't even want to take the time to try to text. So while I was like brushing my teeth, I was brushing my teeth and leaving him a voicemail while he was getting ready to sit down at some fancy dinner in Chicago with like all his business people that he was meeting with.

[00:31:35] And I dropped my daughter off and My son wanted to stay home, which actually backtrack when I said to my children, I have to go to the hospital and Karen is dying, and I'm going to go sit with her. My son asked me if I could tell her that he said goodbye and my daughter gave me a bracelet and asked if I would give it to aunt Karen.

[00:32:06] And so I put the bracelet on my wrist and I. Dropped my daughter off and they wanted to ask a lot of questions and I was a little bit in a rush I was like I like kind of just want to get there. I don't want to delay this any longer. And on the drive there, I called my partner and talked with him and we ran through like, do I have everything I need?

[00:32:33] Did I have a phone charger? Did I have a snack? You know, did I have all this stuff that I needed? And I'm very lucky that I have. I have such supportive people around me, my husband and my partner and I, we have a group text that we text for, for years now, we've had this text. And so like all day long, I'd been kind of updating them as to what was going on.

[00:32:56] And they both were really supportive of me and if I needed anything. And my husband at one point had texted back and said that he was, he was leaving, he was changing his flight. And he was going to fly home from Chicago and at the time I was like, no, don't do that. Like, it's going to be fine. I'm, you know, I'm going to go and sit at the hospital.

[00:33:21] My mom's already set up. Like, it's going to be fine. You don't have to come home because like, in my head, I'm thinking, why come home? Like, you know, He doesn't need to be here, all going to be fine. And so when I got to the hospital, I parked the car, I went up to the front desk, I told them that I was going in and kind of checked to make sure that it would be okay if I had to stay there all night and everybody was so compassionate and so kind.

[00:33:51] Even the woman that checked me in when I said my aunt's dying, I don't know how long it's going to take. I think I might have to be here all night and she said, I'm going to give you. The parking pass or free parking. I believe she called it a compassionate care pass or something like that that they give to people who are there when a loved one's dying and.

[00:34:16] I got up to the room and so when I got upstairs to her room, the room was just full of people. There was her nurse that had been there with her earlier that day. There was a young man that was holding the mask to her face so that she can continue to breathe. There was a doctor. There was just all these people in there just.

[00:34:45] Making sure that whatever needed to happen could happen. One of the things that, again, I know it because I've experienced it. I know it because I've read it, that as people are dying, there can be weird smells. There can be weird noises. There was a woman in there with like some kind of like mint smelly stuff, trying to make the room smell good.

[00:35:13] They just, they were lovely. I mean, honestly, if I could. If I could go back and thank every person individually, I would. I don't even know who most of them were. I didn't get anybody's name. I might recognize them if I saw them again, and I probably will. I mean, again, I'm volunteering now at that hospital.

[00:35:37] But even the woman that brought in cookies and coffee for me, just so kind and compassionate. And I'm crying a little bit now, and it's partially just because it was so beautiful. All of these people that really worked hard to care for my aunts and to care for me. And to create a secret space for us to be together and the doctor was in there and he was explaining to me that what they were doing was not working anymore.

[00:36:16] The only other option was to intubate her and we knew that she didn't want that. And so we needed to call my uncle and have the conversation with him. And, you know, the doctor was. Really great. Very, again, very kind, very compassionate. We had already had the conversation, so we knew that she didn't want to be intubated.

[00:36:45] My uncle knew it. I knew it. So it was really just more a matter of, like, confirming that this is all okay. And we called my uncle and the doctor was on the phone with him. And I know sometimes, like, on my podcast, we talk about how doctors and nurses, they're not great with death and dying, and it might sound like I'm really critical sometimes of them, and it's more nuanced than that.

[00:37:12] Again, he was very kind, he was very compassionate, but, you know, the way that he's explaining things. Even I was still unsure, like, wait, so this means she's actually really dying. Like, I just kind of wanted to ask that, and I just kind of wanted him to say that. And so my uncle wasn't exactly sure. So I took the phone and I explained to him as best as I could from what I could understand that we were going to take this mask off.

[00:37:48] And then she would stop breathing and her heart would stop. And the doctor was like, we're going to allow nature to take its course. And that was really what happened. And so my uncle said that, yes, we should just do that. And what I give her a kiss on the cheek from him. And so we hung up the phone and everybody in the room, again, the room was just full of people.

[00:38:23] Cause at that point there was a lot of. Beeping machines and her heart was not doing well and her breathing wasn't doing well and she was completely unconscious. She didn't respond at all to me at all that day. She didn't squeeze my hand. She didn't open her eyes at all. I mean, she had been totally unresponsive the entire time.

[00:38:48] I had seen her that day, but when we. made the decision. I remembered my mentor, Ali, the first time I went into a room with her and somebody had been, it was a younger guy and he was being kept artificially alive after having had an accident. And Ali had said after his family visited that they were going to liberate him and that stuck with me.

[00:39:26] I really like the term. I like the way that It made me think about the situation, because when we think about, we're going to take off any treatments, feeding tubes, breathing, anything that's been keeping a person's body alive, it seems so harsh to think we're turning these things off, we're taking them off, but the term liberate.

[00:40:01] to free something really is more what it is. We're freeing the person. We're allowing nature to take its course. And that's what we did. We liberated her. Thank you for listening to this episode of seeing death clearly. Next week, I'm going to share with you more about the moments that were leading up to her death, her death itself, how I've been coping with grief and loss.

[00:40:32] Actually, later on, after I recorded this episode, I recorded it last Sunday, and I found out that that afternoon that another member of our family died and then I found out two days later that somebody else died. So we had three deaths in my family in five days. So next week when I come back I'm going to share more about the rest of that evening in the hospital when she died, my experiences with grief, some of the things that have surprised me, some of the lessons that I learned from this experience, what went well.

[00:41:07] What I would have done differently because it has been a learning experience for me. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or family member who might find it interesting. Your support in spreading the podcast is greatly appreciated. Please consider subscribing on your favorite podcast platform and leaving a five star review.

[00:41:28] Your positive feedback helps recommend the podcast to others. The podcast also offers a paid subscription feature that allows you to financially support the show. Your contribution will help keep the podcast advertisement free, whether your donation is large or small, every amount, you. is valuable. I sincerely appreciate all of you for listening to the show and supporting me in any way you can.

[00:41:48] You can find a link in the show notes to subscribe to the paid monthly subscription, as well as a link to my Venmo if you prefer to make a one time contribution. Thank you, and I look forward to seeing you in next week's episode of Seeing Death Clearly.