Petah??
Wednesday, 12 Mar 2025
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Patients who are within minutes or hours of dying often feel much better and become lucid. Family members often see this as promising, but someone around so much death knows what’s coming.
This could be about Terminal Lucidity. There are cases where those on their deathbed experience moments where it was as though whatever was ailing wasn’t there. It’s most common among those with dementia, but it can happen with other illnesses and disorders.
The nurse knows what is likely going to happen, while the family is ignorant to coming heartbreak.
Terminally ill people get a boost in energy in their final days or hours
It’s called terminal lucidity. People seem to recover to a large extent out of nowhere, just to die some time later.
Terminal lucidity is such a strange experience. It’s almost like the body decides to give one final surge of energy, just before it gives in. For families, it can feel like a miracle, but those of us who’ve seen it more often know what it means it’s a bittersweet moment. It gives the patient a chance to say goodbye, but also leaves everyone else caught between hope and the inevitable. I saw this with my own family, and it’s a feeling I’ll never forget.
Yep, the rally. My grandma ate her entire dinner and was so chipper and talkative. My family asked why I was so quiet. She passed the next morning.
This happened to my 90 year old grandmother right before she died. She had been very ill and catatonic for awhile, and then suddenly perked up. We were semi-prepared for it, but it still took us by surprise.
She passed shortly after that, but we got to share some very sweet moments with her before she passed.
Another related phenomenon is when a depressed person is suddenly joyous and social again, appearing like they’re recovered but are actually actively suicidal.
In popular TV, >!Mark Sloan of Grey’s Anatomy experiences this after a plane crash that left him comatose – he seems to briefly recover, then suddenly codes.!< (spoilers for Grey’s Anatomy if you haven’t watched it since like 2016)
It’s like a second wind but more like a last wind. Dying people tend to get a last chance to give their last words through this slight moment of bliss
Terminal lucidity is when a terminally unwell patient suddenly is back to normal at face value, only to pass away shortly after.
Peter’s marine biologist’ cousin here…
As a citizen of bikini bottom, (wait, you didnt know it is at the bottom of Bikini atoll? The nuclear testing site?) radiation is everywhere. Spongebob is dying of radiation disease, in which a patient might feel better before dying.
I’m over here thinking, ‘Did I accidentally prescribe miracle juice?’ 🤔
I find this meme rlly sad. I see this meme as patient’s family cheering the patient to encourage his last moments but doctor knows what’s gonna be at last and he neither can tell them the truth nor is able to watch them cuz he knows what will happen some moments later
Right before she died, my Nana (Maternal Grandmother) had 1 good day. Was a Saturday, May 4th of this year, and my parents took me and my sister to visit. She was in a good mood, was joking around, seemed tired but that was expected. Covid pneumonia will do that to you, especially when followed by a second round of ‘normal’ pneumonia. She complained about the food, rejoiced about the orange cup they brought, and was about as lively as a bedridden arthritis and stroke survivor could be expected. But she was having a very good day. Too good, I should have suspected, but…we’ll get to that.
I’ll always try to remember the last time I looked in her eyes. (This part is difficult to type, and I’m still not over it.) A bright sky blue, with flecks of silver in almost a star in her Iris. Not too bloodshot, but enough to tell she’d done a lot of coughing. She was always very good to me, and I will cherish that last hug forever.
I was the one to catch her coughing up blood into a napkin. I think she’d been hiding it as “oops, musta had some phlegm.” I informed my mother, she informed the Nurses. I think that may have put a slight damper on things, but the visit went well.
My mom said it was good that we got to see her so lively before the end…
And that I didn’t go back to see her when I brought their things to stay the night when her condition plunged the next day. Mom said it was rough, and I’ll take her word on it. Nana fought hard, but ultimately decided to call it, and they transitioned to trying to make it as painless as possible.
She passed away May 6th, in the morning.
This will be the first thanksgiving without her. I miss her a lot. We’ve all managed as best we can though. I’m mainly just glad she isn’t suffering anymore. These last 8 years were rough on her.
Papaw still wakes up at the times he used to need to help her with things at night. Says it makes it hard to stay consistent when the habit won’t stop.
When he…, I fully expect to be completely inconsolable for at least a month maybe longer. I hope that doesn’t happen for several years. I thank God every day for his good health.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to order Pizza Melts to drown this memory in warm comfort food.
Visual learner Peter here. In this image, the nurse has bloodshot eyes indicating something horrific. The likely possibility is that the Family sacrificed the Nurse’s soul to the devil to save the patient.
“last rally”. Critically ill patients (or even people just in their last moments without illness) will sometimes have a rally. Returning to lucidity and appearing to be recovering. In most cases, it’s not a recovery, but something the body/mind does as it approaches the end.
Both my grandfather and mother experienced this, and I’m eternally grateful for those couple of days I got to spend with them.
His name is Chris P.
Terminal lucidity. The patient will have a sudden “reovery”, and be normal, just before they slip back into a coma and die. I guess the body uses up it’s emergency reserves.
When the body, and the brain decides to die, it stops using energy to heal and can use whatever resourses it has willy nilly without a care for long term preservation and rationing. That manifests as a boost of energyband improved mood
The brief respite before the end.
Hallo Peter! Der Medic from Team Fortress here again! I don’t know why Frau Krankenschwester Squidward appears so grim, I’d be beside myself with der Schadenfreude!!
Just fyi, this is not true in most cases. Im aure individual anecdotes exist, but I can tell you as a critical care doc, the majority of the time when the writing is on the wall, things go exactly as expected
joke is OP doesn’t know what POV means
Like a lawnmower running out of gas, sometimes the pt will rev up before they die!
My grandfather was in the hospital for a heart attack. He wasn’t doing well and Grandma stayed by his bedside for days. He woke up, was feeling relatively well and asked grandma to go get him some fast food. He was never a fan of hospital food. She did, and by the time she returned, he was gone.
When my wife’s grandfather was on his death bed, the nurse had warned us that this would happen. But it happens so unexpectedly that you forget what’s happening and are relieved you can speak to your family member for what will be the last time. I’ll never forget his face. His eyes were grey and he was just uncanny. Like something you see in a dream. But we still got to say goodbyes and it was nice that he was able to acknowledge them.
Terminal Lucidity, also known as Rallying or pre-mortem surge, is a phenomena that shows up primarily in patients with severe psychiatric or cognitive disorders like degenerative dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, as well as strokes, tumors and a few others.
Patients who experience it will seem to almost completely recover/feel healthy again, but will be incredibly lucky if they live for another week before dying, usually from catastrophic organ failure, infections or cancer related complications.
There is little to no medical consensus on it (including what the actual characteristics are) owing to the difficulty and ethical concerns related to doing a proper study, however it does give some support to the idea that degenerative neurological disorders can in fact be reversed.
Had a neighbor i was close with dying of cancer. I had moved away when one of the other neighbors contacted me and told me I needed to visit that night. He had been unconscious for 2 weeks and his breathing started having that metallic rattle. I got there sat next to him and said hello. He woke up and looked at me. He couldn’t speak but his eyes looked really happy to see me. A tear dropped and he went back to sleep. He died within minutes. I didn’t even know he was sick until I got the call.
It was heart breaking but that brief moment of lucidity will always be with me. One final goodbye.
My grandmother had horrible dementia. A day before she passed she was sharp as hell. She remembered everyone and was very nice to everyone.