Please share with me your experiences with this....

[*LA*]

Ok, well, here goes.

m new here. I actually found this site when I was looking for "white nurses clogs". I googled that phrase and a journal from this site came up. ( Im going back to work soon, after being home for 4 yrs and am nervous about it, so while i was here, I posted in the OR section, if anyone has any tips, feel free to share them there on my thread. thanks)

Anyway, here goes

long story short, my mother was given 6 months (Ca).

she was NOT religious woman, in fact, she sort of made fun of people who were devout.

well, it had been 5 days since she was released from the hospital, to go home and etc.....

she wasnt ale to walk so she was in bed.

well, that day, she was very lucid and making perfect sense. I was waiting for a delivery (pain meds) from the pharmacy and worried that she would be in pain. she wasnt complaining. she was very clear headed. I was in the other room when she screamed for me to "get in here this minute". when I went into he room, she insisted that I "get rid of that man right now" (she was very angry. she went on to tell me that he refused to leave and she wouldnt have a strange man in her room. there was no one in there. she was sooo insistant and so clear headed that I actually thought that someone has maybe broken in, knowing we had strong pain meds in the house etc etc

well, this went on and on all day long, and each time that I went into her room, she was having a definate conversation with someone?? she actually seemed to be listenning and would stop and them respond "no, Im not going anywhere, I dont know you and you dont tell me what to do anyway"

I was actually getting scared because she seemd so insistent and coherant.

Ok, so the end of the day, she tells my sister that "this man here is telling me that if I go with him, I wont be in pain anymore" ( she had metastatic breast ca). then she calls me in and say to me, "here take this, its a check for your borthday and I want you to have it" (my birthday was the next day). that week she had been given 6 months and I told her that she could give it to me herself tomorrow.

So, went to bed.

when we went in her room the next morning, she was gone.

I am STILL trying to make sense of what went on that last day and I dont have an explanation.

Has anyone ever heard of anything like this happenning before?

I still dont know what to make of it.

thanks

LA

ps I am not crazy, cross my heart

[req_read]

My mother did this when she was dying. She too had metastatic breast ca. One day she asked me if I saw the lady sitting on the end of the bed with her. I told her that I did not and she began to explain in detail what she looked like. The next day she began talking to her mother. Her mother died 10 yrs previously. She kept saying "wait mother, Im coming", "i'll be there soon." Being a nurse it was amazing to watch.

Did the experience you describe have any effect on your views about life and death? Or life after death?

[tfog]

Hello to everyone. I'm considering hospice nursing as a second career due to the high quality care my father received during his last hospitalization. He died July 19 of this year after being disabled for almost 23 years. He was in the hospital for almost 8 weeks; the last 24 hours of which was in the Hospice unit. During his hospitalization he "saw" a little boy on two different occasions. Dad had a brother who died in 1924 at age 5 of diptheria, and mom and I believed that it was Jack, coming to take Dad Home. The Friday before he died he was in and out of consciousness. As I sat at his bedside, I told him it was ok to go, that we would miss him, but I knew he was going to a better place. The following Tuesday night he died. Mom said that he sat straight up in the early afternoon and said, "Darling, I love you!" and then was in and out again. After we kids left, Mom told him that it was ok for him to go, as I had done. He died about an hour later.

During my grief therapy group session, the counselor recommended the book Final Gifts by Maggie Callanan, Patricia Kelley, who were Hospice nurses. I saw that it was mentioned by another poster. This is an awesome book about near death awareness and I highly recommend it for anyone who deals with patient deaths. It has really been a comfort to me.

[Laurell28]

I'm getting chills going up and down my spine reading these posts. I can't count how many times I've had pts report this to me and families find it comforting to know that there will be someone to help their loved one cross over. I'm a hospice nurse who is currently on leave to care for my dying father and for me the thought that my mother will come when its his time (she died 1 1/2 yrs ago) gives me some peace.

[Mazieks]

I had a friend do the very same thing. i work in a Hospital. She was upstairs dying. The cleaning man came in. She told me to tell him to get out. I looked at him and said could you leave us alone for awhile. He said he was finished and left. She called me down in my office and said why don't u tell the people in the Hospital you know what you are doing lol. I laughed and said I would do that.The following morning she too was gone.

[oncalllorraine]

:balloons: i truly respect and am changed by each patients death. i feel that its like having one foot in the natural world and the other foot in the supernatural. my faith has grown imensely in hospice and there has been many a 'holy' moment ('hospice moment') for which there are no words-only awe.

this job is a real gift and blessing and the families can touch your heart when least expected.

[req_read]

There is an essay written by a hospice nurse about this very subject at the following URL...

http://crossingthecreek.com/untold_treasures.htm

You might find it interesting.

It is forums such as this one that give hospice nurses the opportunity to talk about such things among themselves and not have to worry about being labeled weird or crazy. Oncalllorraine... you are absolutely correct in stating that hospice nurses have one foot in the natural world and the other in the supernatural world. For us, that is the norm. But how often have you tried talking about it with a non-hospice person and get a "Wow... what have you been smoking!" sort of look in response?

[oncalllorraine]

thank you so much for your response and the links. i will be sure and share this with all my special hospice cohorts-and anyone else who ask, 'how do you do this'? oncalllorraine

[req_read]

When I was still fairly new to hospice, but beginning to catch on, I asked one of my patients if he had seen "the next world" yet.

He said, "Yes."

I asked him to describe it to me. He started to say something then stopped and said, "No that's not it." He tried a different approach but stopped himself again... obviously having trouble finding the right words.

Finally he said, "Okay... 2 words... large and potent."

Then he gave up trying to describe it.

[katie'sangel, BSN, RN]

To angel's assit, Near Death Awareness, I like that term.

I AM fairly spritutal:) but not in the traditional christian sense:stone . Both of these stories ,about talking to some unseen person, I find very reasuring. Our understanding of the spiritual side of life is only a fraction of what I know we will enjoy when we pass over to the other side. Thanks for sharing. Katie'sangel

[abnerRN]

what you experienced with your mother is a common occurence during the final days and hours of dying people. Some call them "visitations" I don't think of them as hallucinations as I had an experience that made me a believer. I had a patient who kept speaking to "David" in the three days before she passed. At her memorial service there was a picture of this patient and a younger man who it turned out was her son that had died 25 years before, and his name was "David".

[Al Stephens]

LA, your experience is nothing unusual really, when dealing with the dying, you see things like this all the time and it is very hard to explain to the family, let alone the patient. My wife used to see a little boy standing at the end of her bed, for years before she did pass, and she passed in my arms this year. to the patient, the experience is very real, and who are we to say they are not? who was the gentleman? you cal call them a guardian angel, or a lost relative, but who ever it was, he was there to offer your mother guidance, and the chance to hurt no more.

The easiest way to describe to my patients what is going on is that they are so close to both the other side and this one, that they accept both as real worlds. Yes, there is some hallucinating going, probably due to both the meds, and the cancer. In one, they see many others around them, some are known loved ones, some seem to be strangers, and in the other is us standing here, looking confounded, and your mother thought you were going crazy for not seeing him.

Also, that she offered you a check for your birthday was a way of her telling you that she knew she was going, and wanted to clear up something before she went. she had probaly accepted the offer from the gentleman, and was finishing something that she wanted done. I have had patients tell me they were going at a certain time of day, and do it, and others for something in general, such as waiting for their anniversary so that they can go with their loved one.

you experienced a good, and wonderful experience of the fact that there IS something for us after this life, whether it is one religion or other, we cant say, but there is something and your mother was able to show you some signs of what she found.

make sense? I have just got off work all night with some of my patients...so I may not have made much sense, but what you went through, is not only common, but good for her and you.

[nursechris2000]

Speaking to and seeing people that are not there or have long ago died is a very common phenomenon among the dying. Just the other day one of my patients daughter reported that her father had thought his brother was visiting and tugging @ his hair, as he often did when they were children. and how the pt. had laughed and called out to his brother to stop and apeared to be carrying on conversations with several relatives that had passed away some time before. The patient died the very next day. As far as your saying your mother was more lucid the day before she passed is also something that one sees frequently and perhaps it was what she was doing.....its call is rallying. Its like a power more greater than our own has entervened and those that have passed on before are gathering around to lead our loved ones home. I read something one time that made me stop and think, It said: Never stand at the foot of a dying persons bed, for that spot is reserved for his or her guardian angel. I remember that phrase each time I visit one of my hospice patients and take great pains to leave that spot open.