The incident ‘that transformed how she perceives death’ was disclosed by a hospice nurse who has held the hands of hundreds of individuals as they died.
After a particularly moving encounter with a patient, Julie McFadden, who is more often known online as Hospice Nurse Julie, revealed that she is no longer scared of what may happen next.
Since she started posting information about death on social media, the 42-year-old has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers.
In addition to sharing the most typical deathbed admissions, she has openly talked about some of the startling things she has witnessed while helping individuals who are nearing the end of their life.
Julie described how she had a significant experience with a patient, whom she called Randy, soon after she started working in hospice care.
In a June interview with the Mighty Pursuit podcast, she talked about how she felt he’showed her what death genuinely feels like’ on the day he died.
“What I experienced on the day he died is something I’ll never forget,” she continued. “This is the moment I stopped fearing death.”
In addition to his mental health problems and his failing physical condition, Julie claimed that Randy, a guy in his 50s, had no friends or family, hoarded, and had “many outside issues” going on.
She stated, “He needed a lot of help,” adding that her team had to remove his entire house since it “wasn’t safe” for him to live in.
The hospice nurse remarked, “He was like a different man the next time I saw him.” “He was happy, he was more free, more open and he ended up living [another] nine months – which doesn’t sound like a lot, but from what he was dying from and for what he was like when we first saw him, that’s like crazy.”
Julie in particular ‘became really close’ to Randy during this period, but he ultimately developed a tight relationship with the entire hospice team.
“He wasn’t afraid to talk about his own death, so he would talk to me about how he was afraid to die, and what did that mean and how he didn’t live this free life – he had a lot of regrets,” she recalled, recalling how she would frequently visit his house to “hang out” and “just talk about his life.”
“I don’t have favourite patients, but if I did, he probably would be my favourite. I still think of him all the time.”
Randy needed ‘constant care’ as his condition deteriorated, and a nurse was there around-the-clock to help him manage his symptoms, with Julie coming to see him occasionally.
“On the last day when I visited him, I could tell he’d probably die that day,” she stated. “I could tell by how he was breathing, by how he looked.”
Before leaving his house to see her next patient, she’said her farewell to him in her brain’ and asked the nurse who was care for him to notify her when he passed away.
“I was walking out of his flat and I didn’t feel really sad,” she recalled. “I felt so grateful that I had met him, and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I just wish him the best whatever happens, I wish him the best journey’.”
In the end, Julie stayed in her car outside Randy’s house for a while and claimed to have kept “talking to him in her head.”
“And all of a sudden, I heard Randy’s voice in my head and he was saying my name,” the end-of-life expert told the podcast. “Not only did I hear his voice, but I felt like he gave me all of the senses.”
“It was like I could hear him in my head, I could feel how he was feeling and I could almost see him – like he was soaring, he was happy.”
“He was going ‘Oh my gosh Julie, if I only would have known how good this was, I would never have been afraid’. I knew that all his life all he wanted was to be free, he always talked about that.”
“And in death, I could tell he finally felt that and I just felt like an overwhelming feeling of peace and joy and happiness, that I could not help but cry in my car.”
She clarified that the anecdote still makes her “want to cry” whenever she recounts it, “because it was so beautiful.”
Julie went on: “It made me feel not scared of death. When we die we’re going back to the place that we once knew, we’re going back to the place that we came from and I think it’s going to feel like relief.”
“I get glimpses of that place when I’m with people who are dying, when I’m with babies, when I feel connected to people and I have like honest conversations.”
“Whatever this thing is, that thing feels like home to me – and I love being here and I love experiencing life and I’m so grateful for it, [but] I don’t have to fear leaving this place because I think I’m going to a place that’s going to feel more like home than here ever could.”
Guys, let’s hope she’s correct.