upworthy

dying

Community

I had a couple of months to live and what I'm grateful for is not what you'd think

I did find joy in just the tiniest of ways. Here are a few of them.

Sometimes, although well-intentioned, people say the most infuriating stuff when you're facing a health crisis. I know, because it happened to me. After being diagnosed with a fast-moving aortic aneurysm, I was told I was on borrowed time. What a concept! As if I'd gone to the bank and taken out a "time-loan."

Soonish after, I was being lifted onto a gurney by a bunch of dudes who never did introduce themselves. Luckily, I had an amazing surgeon at a top-notch hospital and they took my heart out, (I was on a breathing machine, relax), stitched it up with some kind of polyester netting and sent me off to recovery.

I recall, just seconds before I went under, someone in the room announcing my name, age, height and reason for surgery. Cecily Knobler, 25 year-old female (just kidding, but no one needs my REAL age) 62 inches, aneurysm in the aortic root. I remember thinking in that split second, we are so much more than our names and our inches. We are wine-cooler nights at a mosquito-ridden park in 11th grade. We are the love we had for our dogs and our Big Dipper starry-night crushes and our favorite New Wave songs. We are not our skin or our chemo or our lungs or our fear.

Sometimes when you're in that hospital bed, loved ones just don't know what to say. A lot will tell you once it's all behind you, you'll have a new lease on life. The sunshine will be sunnier, that every breath is a gift, blah, blah, blah. The truth is sometimes it's hard to not get stuck in the woe-is-me cycle of "why did this happen to me?" and/or "what next?"

But I did find joy in just the tiniest of ways. Here are a few:

A strawberry milkshake

strawberry shake in clear drinking glass Photo by Denis on Unsplash

Yep. That simple. Someone went to the cafeteria in the hospital and surprised me with a frothy delicious milkshake I didn't even know I needed. Paired with my tasty IV drip, it was just what the doctor didn't order!

My hospital TV had HBO

lena dunham what GIF by Girls on HBOGiphy

I mean, once I was able to understand the remote, I was overjoyed to see I could watch old episodes of Girls. It hit differently on very little sleep, but I loved it just the same.

A video of my dog

Hungry Dog GIF by Rashmi ChadhaGiphy

A friend who was keeping my mutt while I was "away" sent me iPhone footage of him rolling around in some dirt. It made my heart so full, I almost had to get surgery again!

A night nurse made me laugh

Vintage Nurse GIFGiphy

One of the day nurses and I got into a little tiff. She was trying get me to do a lap on my walker (which apparently is quite good for you) and I told her, "No thanks." We went back and forth for awhile and she finally gave up. Later, when my favorite nurse started his shift at 7:00pm, I told him she had been a bit of a jerk. (I might have used stronger language than that.) He laughed and said, "Oh she's the WORST." This took me by surprise and it was the first laugh I'd had in a long while!

My first bubble bath…3 months later

bored bath GIF by theCHIVEGiphy

After this particular surgery, you're advised to not drive or take baths for 90 days. The driving part I didn't care about, but lavender bubble-baths are my favorite thing. I marked the exact day in my calendar when I could return to that daily habit. And on that day, it was the best darn lavender bubble-bath I'd ever had.

healthy
Internet

Hospice nurses reveal what they say are people's biggest regrets before death

They shared 24 thought-provoking answers.

Photo credit: Canva

Hospice nurses reveal people's biggest regrets before death

Death and dying isn't a pleasant subject to talk about, though there's likely not one living person who has not been touched by death in some way. But the finality of death makes people wonder if people have any regrets from their life that they wish they could do over.

Author, Matthew Kelly decided to ask hospice nurses what they've heard patients reveal regretting before they died. The list was fairly long but also heartbreakingly simple. Many people spend their entire lives trying to figure out how to make more money in order to feel financially secure enough to vacation regularly or even retire.

Of course there would be some regrets around working too much, but that regret only made the list once. There are 23 other regrets people seemed to share and we'll get into them below.

One of the first ones on the list is, "I wish I had more courage to just be my self." Oof. That stings a bit. People spend so much time trying to make sure they're well liked by others that it seems that some people forget to focus on just being themselves. People may hide their true selves for a multitude of reasons such as safety or fear of abandonment depending on what part of their identity they were hiding.

Another common regret is, "I wish I had taken more risks." Risks can be hard when you have other people depending on you for survival. It makes sense that some people might look back on their life and think of all the risks they didn't take, whether it be due to anxiety or security.

Listen to the whole list below:

So many regrets on the list are things that people can start doing now. Like wishing to love more or taking better care of themselves. It's never too late to start caring for yourself or being outwardly more loving. In fact, nothing on the list is overly complex. They're all heartbreakingly simple things that people have the ability to do before their time comes.

Maybe this list will inspire others to make a few tweaks in their life to work towards doing these things while they still can. Maybe it will cause people to realize they're already well on their way to not having any of the regrets listed. Either way, it's serves as a reminder to live life in the best way that you can while still being true to yourself.

From Your Site Articles
what people regret before death
Joy

Man with stage 4 cancer shares what he learned on a beautiful final day on the golf course

“It really puts it all in perspective.”

via Cottonbro Studios/Pexels

A man walks on a golf course.

For most golfers, the game is as enjoyable as it is frustrating. It’s one of the few sports where, for the most part, you’re playing against yourself. The goal isn’t usually to beat your buddies but to play a few strokes below your last game. It’s all about measurable self-improvement. When you feel like you're getting worse, you get a strange desire to chuck your putter into the nearest pond.

Golf is so challenging that only 50% of people who pick up a club can break a score of 100, which isn’t exactly impressive.

In a heartbreaking Reddit post, a golfer who goes by the name Drumsurf on the forum shared how he learned to enjoy every moment of an unimpressive round because he realized what the game was all about: hanging out with friends and, to put it simply, just being able to play.

Sadly, his great realization came on the final of his life.

“I’m 53 and have been playing since I was 19-20. Love the game. Got diagnosed with stage IV cancer in 2020 and kept playing between chemo sessions, surgeries, etc.” Drumsurf wrote on a May 15, 2024 post. “My cancer has gone nuclear and I took I turn for the worse 2 months ago. I can no longer physically handle playing 18 holes or so much of anything that’s active.”

But that didn’t stop him from playing one last round with his friends. His game started strong but quickly faltered.

“I went today with two long-time friends and managed to play the first three holes 1 over par, but then my lack of fitness caught up to me,” he continued. “I took a double on 4, hit my drive in the water on 5, and spent the rest of the round riding in the cart and nursing a Transfusion. Fun to hang with friends and be out of the house, but I’m done with the game. Brutal, really, as I will miss it greatly.”

He ended his post with a message for everyone who’s ever had a hard time on the course. “Next time you get frustrated with golf remember those of us that can’t play any longer. Hit ‘em straight boys!” Drumsurf wrote.

The piece was a welcome wake-up call to many of the duffers on Reddit’s golf forum who’ve all experienced frustrating rounds.

"Thanks, man. It really puts it all in perspective," Helloholder wrote. "We are all one golfer. You’ll always be out there with us," Downwithflairs added.

"I’ll drive one into the water for you," Head_Attempt joked.

"I will not get mad the next time I hit a garbage shot. I’ll think of you and take inspiration. We are with you, my friend," KbPHoto wrote.

Some people paid tribute to Drumsurf by writing his name on their golf balls to remember his wisdom on their next round.

Comment
byu/drumsurf from discussion
ingolf
Comment
byu/drumsurf from discussion
ingolf
Comment
byu/drumsurf from discussion
ingolf

After the post went viral, Drumsurf updated it by thanking everyone who chimed in with messages of support. “Thanks for all the well wishes,” Drumsurf wrote. “My battle is over. Stopped all treatment last month and started hospice care last week. I’m 100% at peace with it all.”

From Your Site Articles
golf
Joy

Hospice cat 'predicted' death, snuggling up to nursing home residents hours before they died

Staff would call residents' family members in as soon as they saw Oscar get cuddly.

HyperionBooksVideos/YouTube

Oscar the cat comforted dying residents at a Rhode Island nursing home for 17 years.

What if a cat could predict when someone was going to die?

That's exactly what Oscar the therapy cat became known for at Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island. In fact, geriatrician and Brown University health researcher Dr. David Dosa, who worked with Steere House patients and witnessed Oscar in action, even wrote a book about the fluffy piebald cat's extraordinary ability.

Dr. Dosa told Crossroad Hospice that when Oscar came to Steere House in 2005, he wasn't particularly friendly with the residents. "Oscar was initially sort of a very scared cat,” he said. “He wouldn’t really like to come out. He would keep to himself. Often times you’d find him in the supply closet or under a bed somewhere."

But once in a while, Oscar would home in on a specific patient, visiting with them in their room and even cuddling up to them in bed. Cats are known to be finicky, so that kind of change in behavior wouldn't be so unusual, but soon staff noticed a pattern emerging.

"We would eventually find out after he did this several times that the people he was staying with were usually the next ones to go," shared Dr. Dosa. "One death occurred, then two deaths and ultimately he hit about 20 or 30 deaths in a row at which point everybody started to say, ‘Wow, this is something quite unique.’”

Oscar's behavior within hours of someone's death was so accurately predictive, staff started calling in the family members of residents as soon as they noticed the cat starting to get friendly and cuddly with them.

Dr. Dosa described what Oscar's behavior looked like in a video in 2010.

"When Oscar makes his rounds, he walks around the unit checking in on the 40-some patients on the floor," he said. "He only stays with patients if they really are at the end of life. He will come into a room, he has been known to jump on the windowsill and sit there for hours on end. Occasionally, he will jump on the bed and curl up to a patient, and he will be there until the very end."

The staff were all a bit skeptical at first. As Dr. Dosa shared, "It's not something that you see every day, and this was a pretty unremarkable acat in every other capacity."

But even a family member of a residents who died with Oscar by their side offered a perspective on Oscar's unique ability: "It’s not that we trusted the cat more than the nurse. Not, exactly. It was … well, there was just something about Oscar. He seemed so convinced of what he was doing. He was so clear in his intention and his dedication.'"

The big question is, of course: How did Oscar know?

"I think that ultimately your guess is as good as mine,” Dr. Dosa told Crossroad Hospice in 2016. “It [could be] likely that he’s responding to some smell when cells start to break down.”

Research shows that both cats and dogs have the ability to smell illness and disease in humans, and it's possible that Oscar had a particularly keen nose for chemical changes during the death process. Whatever it was, it compelled him to offer his companionship during someone's dying hours.

Oscar passed away himself in 2022 after comforting dying residents at Steere House for 17 years. Read more about him and his abilities in "Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat" by David Dosa, M.D.

book cover of making rounds with oscar

"Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat" by David Dosa, M.D.

Amazon

From Your Site Articles
cats
Trending Stories