Anish Vij
A hospice nurse from California has revealed what the most common regret is from people in their final moments.
Julie McFadden has witnessed over a hundred people die in her line of work, which focuses on making patients feel as comfortable as possible before they die.
Over on her YouTube channel Hospice Nurse Julie, she has explained what the 'worst thing to die of is', as well as the noise someone makes when they have less than 24 hours left to live.
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In an interview with podcaster Rob Moore, Julie also shared the sad reality of what's usually on people's minds.
Julie told Disruptors: “The main thing people say, that I don't hear a lot of people mention, is ‘I wish I would have appreciated my health’.”
In order to practice what they preach, Julie writes a 'gratitude list' each night, including things that everyone takes for granted, such as sight, the ability to walk and other things she is grateful for.
“I like the fact that I can breathe, I'm walking around, I can feel the sunshine – little things like that,” she shared.
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“I think the biggest thing I hear from people [who are] dying is that they wish they would have appreciated how well they how well they felt before.”
You may have felt like this after a period of being sick and being able to smell or taste again, but being grateful for it everyday makes it that much sweeter, according to Julie.
Before specialising as a hospice nurse, she worked in an Intensive Care Unit, meaning that she has been around death for a lot of her career - which she opens up on in her book.
The nurse further added: "I believe that people should know about the dying process before they're actually going through it with a loved one or themselves."
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The American health expert admitted that she too takes life for granted sometimes, explaining: “I think because of my job it's easier for me to see how how uh once in a lifetime this is fact that everything works together in our bodies to make us live and grow um and I see that in depth too I see how our bodies are biologically built to die.”
Dying is a natural process with nothing to be scared about, and Julie says we all have to accept that, but opened up about how certain US citizens will undergo a cruel death.
“Generally speaking, it helps to have money to die well which I think is really unfortunate,” she admits.
Unfortunately, in the US, hospice care isn't free, so working class senior citizens will often be cared for at home in their final days.
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Julie highlighted that family can take care of you 24/7, but they won't be qualified to do so, and people working to make enough to survive will financially struggle to support someone in end-of-life care.
“Only people with pretty extreme wealth can do that, which I think is really unfortunate. So I don't think money does make you happy, but it helps it certainly takes stress off of the situation,” Julie stated.
Additional words by Joshua Nair.