After years spent caring for people at the end of their lives, Julie McFadden ended up radically changing her outlook on the afterlife. A testimony that allays many concerns.
The end. We all fear it, to varying degrees. Fear of suffering, of leaving those we love, fear of the unknown and of what awaits us, perhaps, on the other side. However, Julie McFadden, palliative care nurse, affirms: “I’m not afraid of dying”. And she explains how she got there.
For several years, Julie McFadden worked in the intensive care unit, working with patients near the end: “We were trying to keep people alive, and yet some were still dying. And those deaths seemed traumatic to me” It was by joining palliative care that her outlook changed completely. After just one year, she understood that there was no longer any reason to fear death. Why? “Because this reason is actually purely biological”she explains in a video.
In fact, our bodies are designed to go through this natural process. “It is literally programmed, biologically, physiologically and metabolically, to help us die.” Which reassured the nurse: “Knowing that my body is designed to help me go brings me immense comfort”. In palliative care, she found that medical interventions intended to support patients towards the end were minimal: “We were doing very little to help them”. The body shuts down on its own, gently, when the time is right.
Julie McFadden noticed some signs in her patients at the end of life: they gradually lost their appetite and the feeling of thirst, and slept more and more. The cause, in particular, is an increase in their calcium level in the blood: when the body slows down, the kidneys filter less well and calcium accumulates, which plunges the person into deeper and deeper drowsiness. More surprising: “The more dehydration the person became, the better they generally felt, and the more peacefully they passed away.”
The brain, too, accompanies this departure. Julie McFadden says that some of her patients, perfectly lucid and conscious a few weeks before their big departure, confided in her that they saw missing loved ones. “Their parents came to them to tell them that they were going to leave soon, that everything would be fine, and that they no longer had to be afraid of death.” This phenomenon is called “end-of-life dreams and visions.” It is studied by caregivers, in particular by American researchers who have documented it in studies with patients in palliative care and their loved ones. For caregivers, this phenomenon is also an indicator of the patient’s condition at the end of life.
But not everyone is there. If the fear of death, yours or that of your loved ones, becomes a daily burden, and it feeds overwhelming anxiety or depressive symptoms, it is important not to be alone. Consulting a mental health professional allows you to be listened to, supported and relieved.
