We all have things in life that we would prefer to take to the grave rather than admit to, but people often change their minds when death actually comes knocking.
Sometimes, hospital staff are the only people around to listen when a patient plucks up the courage to get something off of their chest - so the doctors, nurses, porters and cleaners have to double up as a confidant too.
As you can imagine, death bed confessions are often quite dark and are usually done to help alleviate the guilt or regret someone feels, effectively freeing themselves from their secrets or sins.
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But on the odd occasion, these eleventh hour admissions can be a different kind of soul-stirring.
One woman has revealed the only dying confession that has ever made her cry in a Reddit thread where nurses were discussing the 'most memorable' secrets they've ever been told from a gravely unwell patient.
Chiming in on the conversation, she explained that she was a scrub nurse who 'assists the surgeon during surgeries' and is on standby to lend a hand in the operating room.
Her post said: "I was preparing an elderly patient for a pretty high risk surgery. There was a good chance he was going to be fine, but there was also a decent chance things were going to go south. He knew this."
The woman recalled how she began chatting to the man while she was going over his chart and the nurse anaesthetist was preparing to sedate him for the operation.
The scrub nurse said that their surface-level conversation suddenly took a super emotional turn, which left her feeling thankful that she was wearing a protective mask which 'helped hide her expression'.
She wrote: "He says to me, 'I need you to tell my wife I’m sorry for all the times I raised my voice at her. There weren’t many times. But right now I wish there weren’t any'.
"That was the first time I ever got choked up at the bed side. I so badly wanted to tell him everything was going to be okay, but no one knew if it was going to be.
"I said back to him, 'I’ll do anything you need me to, but right now let’s think about some happy memories before you go under'. I asked him to tell me about he and his wife’s first date."
Chills, guys, literal chills.
The woman went on to explain that she was forced to 'excuse herself' from the surgery suite and start scrubbing in again once the patient was under anaesthesia to 'stop herself from crying'.
Her post added: "He made it through surgery and his wife was waiting for him after being transferred from the PACU."
The scrub nurse said the mere thought of her conversation with the man still gets her 'choked up', especially as his wife had also described their relationship as similar to the one Carl and Ellie share in the Pixar film Up.
Other nurses on the Reddit thread admitted that the woman's post had really managed to move them, while others were just extremely relieved to hear that the bloke had been able to apologise to his wife himself.
One person said: "This is so beautiful."
Another added: "Ugh... that's so sweet."
A third confessed: "I actually cried a tiny bit."
A fourth wrote: "This even made me tear up, that’s so incredibly wholesome."
And a fifth chimed in: "You did so wonderfully in easing his worries. This warmed my heart, thank you."
Topics: Health, Reddit, Sex and Relationships, Mental Health
Olivia Burke