Over 100 Years Old, He Chose His Final Day.

[00:00:00]I just had an amazing experience with a patient and I need to tell you guys about it. A while back I was admitting a patient who was more than 100 years old, okay? So, more than 100 years old. When I went to the their house to admit them onto hospice, this patient was answering the door, up, walking, talking, and they were 100-and-something years old, remember, okay? So, to my surprise, this person was really lucid and like fully living his life. He also lived with his two very grown children, okay? They were both in their 80s as well. Like, they were all elderly living there together.

[00:00:36]And I tell you all this because it was it was a beautiful admission. I talked to this man and he was so happy to be coming onto hospice. He was coming onto hospice because of um a metastatic cancer that [music] they had just found.

[00:00:49]But, otherwise, he didn't really have a ton of symptoms. He was still able to care for himself, but he just didn't want to treat this disease, right? As we were talking, he was like, "Listen, I had the most beautiful life. I retired early because my wife and I knew we wanted to like travel the world and experience life. We both retired at 60 years old. We traveled the world for 20 years, till they were like 80, right?

[00:01:14]Then she died." And he's like, "And now I've lived another 20 years." He's like, "I'm ready to go. I've lived the most beautiful life. I have my children still here with me. I'm ready to go." So, when he said all this, I was thinking to myself, he does live in California. This disease is it's not going to be a quick decline. I was thinking to myself, I wonder if he is interested in the end-of-life medication, medical aid in dying. It is legal here in California.

[00:01:42]And before I could say anything, because I am allowed to say something when a patient does start talking about it, like they start talking about like I'm ready to go, I wish I wish there was something I could do about it, but I didn't have to. Because the next thing out of his mouth was, "I want to get that medication."

[00:02:01]And I knew what that meant. I said, "Okay. We actually can do that." Now, we can't do that as a hospice company.

[00:02:06]We're not allowed cuz it's cuz hospice is federally funded and this is a state-by-state thing. So, he would have to go out on his own and get this medication. So, I talked to him and his children about how to go about it, what he had to do to get it, and that it'd be something that they would have to do on their own because it's federally funded so hospice can't pay for it, things like that. I eventually finished the admission and went about my day because this man is going to have to go through a bunch of hoops to get this medication.

[00:02:35]So, I kind of forgot about him, right?

[00:02:36]About a month later, when I was working again, I got a call from the office and asked if I could go sit with the family whose loved one, the patient, was going to take the end-of-life medication. Just to be clear, no one actually has to do that. They do not need a nurse there.

[00:02:52]They can do it on their own as long as they tell us afterwards. Legally, no one has to be there. They can do this on their own. However, some families would like a nurse to be present because they're a little scared or they don't they don't know what to expect. And again, nurses can say no if they don't like technically agree with it. There are definitely some nurses I work with that won't do this because they don't agree with this medication. However, I am okay with it so I'm happy to go sit with the family and the patient while they do this. And this to me is where the story gets beautiful. So, they give me the name and it doesn't totally ring a bell, but once I pull up to that house, I go, "Oh, this guy. I remember this guy. He's so amazing." I walk in, he is happy. He is joyful. This is going to be his last day on Earth. He knows it and he is so okay with this. Now, I will say, his children, not so much. They were okay with him doing it. They agreed that, you know, whatever he wants, they're okay with, but obviously they're sad. They're losing their dad today. But again, so I walk in, he's happy. He says he's ready to go. Like, you know, do you have any questions? No, we read the instructions. We know what to do. Um I know how like where I want to be, how I want to do it. And I'm like, great. I'm just going to be here to answer any questions or take care of you and help your children through this. Like, whenever you're ready, we can do this, right? So, he decides that he wants to lay in his bed, the bedroom that him and him and his wife shared for years. And his children were there at his bedside.

[00:04:22]He wanted to look through his wedding photo album before he drank this drink, cuz in his mind, he did he did believe in an afterlife, and he did believe he'd be seeing his wife soon, who he missed very much. He sat on the bed, he was laying down, and he was looking through the photo album, and then decided to drink the drink.

[00:04:41]And, you know, they said their I love yous, their goodbyes, and this man drank this drink like he was taking a shot of whiskey or something. Like, excited and like ready to go. And he just took it, was happy, closed his eyes, said I love you to his kids, closed his eyes, and literally, I'm not kidding you, in 5 minutes, this man had died. And that is not usual, that is not usual. That's not usually how this medication works, okay? Usually what happens is someone will drink the drink, in like 5 to 10 minutes they will fall asleep, and then go unconscious, and then the body will go into the actively dying phase, changes in breathing, changes in skin color, the death rattle, all the things. And it usually takes about 45 minutes to an hour for the person to actually die. Not this guy.

[00:05:33]Not this 100-year-old. One, I think it had to do with his age, and also just his willingness to like be done with this. He drank the drink, and I'd say 5 to 10 minutes, not only was he asleep immediately, he died. Like, heart stopped imme- almost immediately and very peaceful, very quick and of course the kids mourned, but also they were okay with it. You know, they knew he had a good life. They knew they had a good life together. They knew he had a very very long life and he was ready to go. And to me, I'm telling you about this because it's like such a beautiful life lived and even though he was still so ready to go and I believe in this medication and and having autonomy of your body so much. I'm totally okay with it, right? There's still something profound about it.

[00:06:22]There's still something that is so profound watching someone be so fully alive and then not. So it always makes me contemplative, right? Like it always it always makes me think about my own life, about what it means to live a full life, you know, why some people get to, some people don't get to. It still was really beautiful. Moments like this although complicated and although can make me feel like weird. It's hard it's hard to even explain. I feel a little um yeah, just it feels like a a weird feeling to see someone so fully alive and then leave their house and they are they are gone. It made me think and I wanted to make sure I shared this with you because it's important that we live our life in the day that we're in. We live our life knowing that we are going to have an end to it someday, right? This was a beautiful example of that, I think. I actually have a video of that exact day when I'm in my car. I'm in my car and I basically was feeling so moved. I recorded the moment. I recorded the moment I got back into my car after it was all done. Now this happened months and months ago, so so don't worry about that, but I want to leave you with that video. Leave you with the video of of me getting to my car after that visit.