Transcript
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I had intense fear and panic because we were obviously crashing. Out of my heart came the
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thought, oh god help, I'm going to die.
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From the time that they pronounced me dead was a good 45 minutes.
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It's determined that I was not breathing for 20 minutes.
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They cut my clothes and then they paddled my heart, my heart had stopped. And I could
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see people screaming and crying, but I didn't realise that was actually my physical body
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because I was somewhere else.
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By which you went to the past far, in the afternoon, by half past seven I was dead, clinically
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dead, four minutes.
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And they were crying because I was dead and I was trying to tell them no, I'm not dead,
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I'm just fine, I'm okay.
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I was greeted by people I'd known in the past.
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I started to feel like I was surrounded by all this warm, loving, beautiful, soothing,
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loving energy.
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I'm back with God again. I just felt this all in my two breath of these, like, wow,
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I'm back.
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I'm back home again.
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Incredibly safe and felt at home. I'd come back home. It was a very strong feeling that
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I've come back home.
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The only thing that I could feel, if you could imagine, absolute love and peace, there wasn't
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anything else to be felt.
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And light is literally emitting from him. And I could feel that that tremendous amount
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of love was coming through him as well.
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They were brighter than everybody else. And I just knew who they were.
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Welcome everybody to Round Trip Death. I am so excited for who we have on today. And her
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big smiley face looking at me. But we have a social media star, just a wonderful person.
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I read her book this week and it's great. Hadley Vlahos. Welcome to the show.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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What's the name of your book?
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The In-Between and the subtitle is Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments.
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Okay. I'm happy to let you leave that shameless plug there. I already mentioned it's worth
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reading, definitely.
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And this show today is going to be, I'm going to warn everybody, this is going to be a little
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different than what we normally do.
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Because we are not going to be listening to Hadley's near-death experience. She is a hospice
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nurse and we're going to be listening to some of her experiences about being a hospice nurse.
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And why I thought this related to the show. And people ask me from time to time, what
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is the purpose of this podcast? And it is not to sensationalize near-death experiences.
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It is to find out what we can learn from them. And one of those things or a couple of those
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things are the fact that it can give us some hope and faith in an afterlife. And in family
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relationships continuing after this life.
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And that's some of what we'll be talking about with Hadley today. First of all, tell us a
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little bit about you.
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Yeah, hi y'all. I'm Hadley. I am a registered nurse. My specialty is hospice. I've been
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working in hospice since 2016. And when by real quick, I absolutely love my job so much.
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I care for people in their homes. I'm a case manager. So I go from home to home and take
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care of patients of all backgrounds. Financial, any backgrounds really. Just any walk of life
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you can imagine. And I love meeting new people. When I'm not doing that, I am married to a
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physical therapist. I have three kids. I wrote a book, which I heard about. And I'm also
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on social media as Nurse Hadley. And as I go about my week, amazing things happen. And
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I really didn't think anyone would care about that. But turns out, tons of people do. They
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like hearing my experiences and I love sharing them.
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It's really given me a piece that I feel like my patients are like living on in some way.
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I have all these amazing experiences and then they die. And then a lot of times their spouse
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will die as well or they're already gone. And then it feels like I'm just holding on
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to these experiences. And it's kind of an odd feeling. And then now social media has
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allowed me to have their stories live on through all these people. And I just love it.
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Let's talk about your social media for a second. You're being modest. How many likes do you
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have on TikTok?
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Oh, I don't know. I think it's coming up on 50 million.
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50 million. That's all.
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I think so.
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How many followers on Instagram?
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I think I have 170,000.
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That is not shabby Hadley.
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Yeah, it's awesome.
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So one of the questions that I had is give us your approximate age. I learned when I
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was young to never ask a lady her age, but give us an idea because you're pretty young
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for being a hospice nurse. Tell us about that.
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Yeah. And 30 years old, I'm definitely the youngest of all of my coworkers. But I really
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like it. I think that patients really love giving me their advice and telling me stories
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like, oh, if I could go back to your age and do things differently, that's what I would
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do. And I love that.
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If I hadn't seen you through social media and gotten to know you through your book and
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someone said, imagine what a 30 year old hospice nurse would look like, I would picture goth,
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dark makeup, black fingernail polish, skull and crossbones tattoos. That is not you at
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all. Is it?
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No, you're definitely not.
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Now the accent, are you in Florida?
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I'm from Florida. We live near New Orleans now.
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Okay. That's awesome. Okay. So social media kind of helped people see some of your stories.
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They got interesting. You realize that you do a bunch of that now. I'd like to talk about
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just some of the things that you've learned and maybe we'll get into one or two of your
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stories if you don't mind spoiler alert on the book a little bit.
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Yeah.
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I think about maybe one of your, not only a patient that you loved, I know you love all
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of them, but that you learned something from and their experience with death would be interesting
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to our listeners.
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Yeah. I think, you know, I recently had a video, it's not in my book, but it went very
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viral and I really learned a lot recently from it. Whereas basically I was doing like
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a blog style like I normally do video just kind of show in my day, show in our morning
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routine, all the kids, all the craziness we have basically a newborn and then a toddler
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and then one that's a little bit older and just saying that I was really stressed out
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and there are toys everywhere and just, I never had enough time, you know, working as
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a nurse and doctor and three kids. It's just overwhelming. And I got in the car and a nurse
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called me that had a pediatric patient that I'm not a pediatric hospice nurse, so I don't
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normally see them, but she was like, hey, they live right down the road from you. I'm
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kind of far away. Can you just go see them real quick? The parents called. So I went
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in and I was my normal peppy self like, I'm going to go see a patient for another nurse
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real quick and, you know, do my normal like video style. This is my day and I got back
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in the car and I was immediately like, oh my gosh, like, I can't believe this because
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I went because the pediatric patient was not playing with her toys anymore. She only wanted
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to sleep. And I was like, wow, that's a very big wake up call for me who was sitting over
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here complaining about all the toys on the floor and it just reminds you to kind of get
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out of your own head and realize how short life can be. And honestly, that's one of my
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favorite parts about the job is that I'm not ever like just moving through life without,
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you know, being aware of my own mortality at all times. And I think it allows me to live
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a better life because of it.
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One of the things that got me interested in near death experiences is I grew up hearing
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a story about my uncle who died when I believe he was 14 years old from kidney disease. And
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so this would have been way back, you know, roughly in the depression era, you know, there
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weren't all that many, you know, medical was different than there. There wasn't all the
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treatments that they can do now. And the story that I was told from those who were in the
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room with him just before he passed is that he said he heard children laughing and then
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he saw other children playing.
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Yeah, that's amazing.
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I never knew what to do with that. Yeah. Okay. Tell us some of an experience like that. Maybe
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that's happened to you.
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Yeah, that's super common. And a lot of people report that. And it's kind of one of the things
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I love about sharing my experiences is I share like that's very normal for people to see
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deceased people or loved ones. And people are able to be like, wow, like your experience
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like I thought that maybe they were just confused. But now that makes me feel a little bit better
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like they were being comforted by people on the other side. And it is it's super common.
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I have one in the book who I call Carl in the book, who had his two year old daughter had
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drowned. And he went on, you know, to live his entire life. I took care of him at the
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end of his life, who's in his 80s. And she came back and got him a couple days before
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he died. She showed up and they were playing hide and go seek, which was one of the most
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amazing things I've ever witnessed.
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And Carl hadn't been out of bed for a long time, right?
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No, like I think a year he hadn't gotten out of bed and he was up and like, like on his
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hands and knees, like looking under the bed and like, like really up. I was shocked. And
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they call that the surge of energy and then seeing deceased loved ones. And you know,
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it's always, it's always very peaceful. And a lot of people will say like, oh, it's hallucinations,
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but I also see hallucinations and they're always very terrifying or scary. And with
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seeing deceased loved ones, there's always this like calmness or happiness about it,
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like a reunification.
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And is that how you know it's something real versus a hallucination?
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Yeah, absolutely. It's just, you know, how they are reacting to it. And they're usually
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extremely matter of fact about it. And the way I kind of just from being around it for
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so many years, the way I kind of interpret it is that they are seeing their loved one,
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just like they're seeing you and me so they can still see us, but then they're also seeing
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this person also just like they see us. And so they're kind of in between worlds is what
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I say. And they're very matter of fact, like my mom's here, you know, whereas whenever
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they're hallucinating and say they have spiders on their bed, they're like, I've taken a new
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medication and now spiders are on my bed and it's like really scary me. And you know, there's
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like, it's a difference, not a very like calm matter of fact. And then they usually say
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they're going on a trip, if they can talk that much at that point.
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I think that's interesting. You mentioned there's so matter of fact about it. One of
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the things that people having near death experiences often tell me is they come out of their body
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in their up in the corner of the room by the ceiling. And they look down on their body
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and maybe medical staff is working on it or something. And it doesn't scare them. It doesn't
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freak them out. It's a very matter of fact thing. Oh, there's my body. Oh, well, I guess
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I died. One gentleman even referred to it as the body, not even as his body. He felt
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so detached. Yeah, that's yeah, that's absolutely what I see. And it's very interesting because
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you know, I know these patients, I get to know them for a very long time. So I mean,
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I trust them. And they're, you know, they're not going to collectively all decide to lie
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to me, you know, so there's no way for them to even communicate with each other, right?
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But they all see the same things, which is so fascinating to me. Have you ever seen any
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of those things too? Nope, I never have. Why do you think that is? I'm hoping it's because
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I'm not dying. We did have I don't think I've ever shared this. We had a hospice nurse who
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worked for us who came to our meeting one time. And she said that she felt like she saw
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a shadow of someone, you know, someone was seeing their deceased loved ones. And she
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felt like she saw someone and we were like, Whoa, that's crazy, you know, just move on
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with our day. We talked about that kind of stuff all the time. We're just like, that's
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crazy. Two weeks later, she didn't show up for work, which was very out of character
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for her. We kept calling her she didn't show up. And our boss ended up calling 911. She
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lived on her own. And they said that she was ended up in the hospital for weeks. Thankfully,
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she lived, but they said that she was like knocking on death's door from pneumonia. And
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so we've always wondered if maybe, you know, she could see him because she was kind of
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closer to death. I just I wish I knew why we had to be close to death for that to happen.
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Yeah, you know, maybe maybe it's for our own good. We would just freak out if we saw these
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spirits around. Yeah, I agree. And I know that some people, you know, can and I think
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that that's interesting, like mediums and all of that. But if I ever see anyone, I'm
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going to be concerned that something's happening to me.
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No, you should think it's cool. Yeah, I'm I'm sharing this experience with you. In fact,
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there is a term in the near death experience world called shared death experience shared
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death experience. Are you familiar with that and what that means?
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No, I'm not. Okay. There is something called a shared death experience. I haven't researched
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it a lot. My understanding is that it means in some way, you are sharing the death with
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that person. For example, I've read some accounts from someone who lived 2000 miles away from
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their parent. When their parent died, they for some reason knew it. They either felt
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it. One person actually saw the parent at the foot of their bed for a few seconds. Something
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happened that there was some kind of a sharing of this experience. Okay, they may not have
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seen what the dying person saw. But they they knew the person died or saw them or something
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else to where they felt like they had a share of that experience. Have you ever had something
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happen where maybe one of your patients you have gotten close to passed away and you weren't
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there because you had to be someplace else, but you somehow knew that it had happened.
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Yeah, I've definitely gotten feelings before where I have woken up in the middle of the
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night and I'm like, I think they died. But I always kind of brush it off because, you
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know, I know that they're going to die. You know, I can kind of scientifically tell when
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someone's very close to death. So I've always kind of been like, you know, maybe just because
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I know it, you know, that there's a high probability that it is going to happen tonight. But I have
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had one experience I've never known the term I didn't know there was a term for it. But
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I had a patient in a nursing home because you know, I used to work in Florida. So we
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would get a lot of people who would come retire in Florida with their spouse and move away
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from their kids. People always say never put your how could you put your family in nursing
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home. And it's like they decided to move away from their kids, you know, come down to Florida,
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their spouse dies and then they end up in a nursing home. And so their kids are still
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all up north. And so I would go see these patients in the nursing home. And I had someone
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who was on hospice. It's like, can't really be unexpected on hospice, but she didn't go
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through like the normal stages to where I'm saying like, it's going to probably be a couple
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weeks, might be a couple of days, like she just kind of died in her sleep. It shocked
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me because I had seen her that day before and she was like, eating a cheeseburger. And
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she just went to sleep and never woke up. And so I got the call in the middle of the night.
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And as soon as I go and like confirmed it, I called her daughter who lived up north where
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I had talked to quite a few times. And I talked to her all the time, multiple times per week.
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And it was at this point in the morning. So she shouldn't have thought anything was off.
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And she immediately said, is my mom dead? And I said, she is. Did the nursing home call
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you? And she was like, no, I just, I just know she's dead, isn't she? And I was like,
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yeah, she is. I was shocked. It was so crazy.
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What do you make of that? Interpret it for me.
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You know, my thought process is that we're all, you know, I think we're all connected
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in some way. You know, I've seen, I've had those feelings before where it's like, I think
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this person is dead and I've always been correct. But like I said, I kind of know it's coming.
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So I know that the feeling, but that one has always shocked me that she, she had no reason
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to think that. And I just, you know, my interpretation is that she just had such a strong feeling
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that her mom was no longer in the world anymore.
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And we hear those kinds of things a lot. And they are unexplainable. But I find it very
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fascinating. I do too.
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I was hoping you'd have some insights on that. You think about that for a few more years
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and get back to me.
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I will. And I'm sure it'll keep happening. These things never cease to amaze me after
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doing it even six years. It just is, it's, they're always just mind blowing to me.
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So doing all the social media you do, does it surprise you that so many young people
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are interested in death? And I don't mean that morbidly, but tell me about that.
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Yeah. It really shocked me because a lot of people that I would meet in real life would
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not want to talk about my job. And especially, you know, you've seen me, I'm a very like
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upbeat person. So I'd be like, yeah, I work in hospice and I love it. And most people
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are kind of like, what in the world? Like, what is wrong with this person? And you read
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in my book where a doctor one time at a holiday party was like, you like death? Like, what
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is wrong with you? And so I had been conditioned to, to not want to talk about my job at all.
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And then when I started on social media, I just said I was a nurse. I didn't say what
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type of nurse. And then people kept asking me like I couldn't avoid the question anymore.
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And so I finally made a video and was like, I work in hospice. I like it. I think I have
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cool stories. If you want to hear them and the video did really, really well. And tons
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of people were like, please, like, please tell me like I had a loved one dying in hospice.
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I want to hear them. My dad died in hospice. Please tell me. And that's how it all started.
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And I'm, I'm shocked too. But I think this next generation or my generation and, you
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know, below us, like they don't want to have that, you know, just don't just ignore it
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and pretend like it doesn't exist kind of mentality anymore.
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I think that's great. There's also something changing with people that have had near death
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experiences. I hear this over and over and over. Oh, I had my experience back in the
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1980s. I told the doctor or I told, you know, somebody else, they said, you are crazy. You
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have to not even talk about that. And so they didn't, they stuffed it away for decades.
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And now it's so therapeutic for them to finally be able to talk about it because people are
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listening and accepting that there's more going on here.
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I agree. I think it's wonderful. I did. I totally agree. There are so many people who
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have shared stories that I just think it's amazing that we're finally talking about it.
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We should. It's a good, healthy thing. I agree. And it doesn't mean you're obsessed with death
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or anything else. Yeah, absolutely. So did you have some kind of a religious upbringing
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that made you automatically believe in these things when patients were seeing loved ones
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or did that, or did you just learn it on the job? So I was raised a Episcopalian, very,
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very, very strict religious household. And then I really got away from it. And I lost
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a friend at 15. He died playing football. And I just did not feel like I was getting
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my questions sufficiently answered by the church. And I just kind of really got away
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from it. And then I went to work in the ER and saw, I call it the dark underbelly of
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the world and just the horrors that exist every day. Horrible, horrible things that
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are happening every day, people being shot, people being, you know, raped. Like, I don't
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know if I'm allowed to say that word, but, you know, things like that. And you're just
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like, this is ugly, like this world is so ugly and horrible. And I guess I became an
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atheist. And then I went into hospice. I liked the setup of it medically. I just felt like
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I couldn't ignore what was happening to these patients of both religious and non-religious
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backgrounds anymore. You know, it didn't make sense. And I've kind of had to come to accept
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that bad things happen in this world, but it doesn't mean that it's black and white.
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So I called my book in between, you know, so many things there's an in between and we
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don't know everything. And you can accept both things happen at once. So I definitely
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did not go into it thinking that it was a religious spiritual thing. I kind of had to
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learn. Right. And you were atheist and, and learn some of these things. Would you say
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you're not atheist anymore? And definitely not atheist anymore. Okay. So this is a question
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I often ask people at the end, but I'm going to ask you right now. Because of your experiences,
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do you have fear of death yourself? I'm not scared of death at all. Not at all. Why not?
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I know that I'm going to go, there's going to be another place to go after this one.
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I know it's not the end. I have a lot of things I want to do here on earth. So I'm like, don't
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want to, but I feel very confident in the way I live my life every day that if I have
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to answer for what I do, I will be confident in doing that tomorrow or in 70 years. And
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so that's what's important to me. I don't want to answer it tomorrow. But if I do, I,
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I think it's a better place than here personally. So it's like, okay, with me,
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Can you expound on that? Why do you think it's a better place?
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Just because of how peaceful my patients feel at the end. I've seen people very scared
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to die. No matter how many times the chaplain comes in, no matter their religious beliefs,
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I mean, I've seen the most religious people be terrified to die as they get on hospice.
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I mean, it's like, you know, the scary word, you know, facing your own death. And then
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when it comes down to it, they're not scared whenever they're actually dying because, you
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know, coming on hospice, you are dying, but a lot of people can have many months. So it's
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not too different than how you and I are whenever they come on to hospice. Then there's a difference
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whenever they like that last week and they're not scared.
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Why do you think that is?
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You know, I, I call it the in between because I believe that they're in between our world
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and the next world. And I think that wherever we go next is very peaceful. And so I think
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that that is, you know, how they feel sometimes we have people who get what we call terminal
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agitation, where they'll like get anxiety and they'll pick at the sheets and stuff like
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that, but they're not necessarily saying that they're scared to die. It's just more of an
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agitation. And I can tell a difference. They're, they're like with me in those moments. They're
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looking at me. They are picking at the sheets. They're like in our world agitated. And then
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whenever they're seeing deceased loved ones or, you know, different things like that,
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I like, they're very peaceful. And I think that they're like in the next world.
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I like that. And that's where the in between comes from. I get it now.
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Yeah.
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I think that's what I think because they're sort of like we would say one foot in the grave,
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one foot out of the grave kind of thing. Yeah. That's not putting it near as respectfully
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as the way you have. But that's basically what it is. They're, they're between worlds
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is what I say. Okay. How about pets? Have you ever had anyone talk about seeing their
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pets? Yeah, just, just a couple of times. But I did, I've had someone had a cat come
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and a dog come. And I've also had coworkers that have had those experiences as well. What
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I do see with that is people who that was who they were closest to. That is whenever
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you'll see that. But whenever I have patients who did have pets that they were close to,
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but they also had a ton of family, I noticed that the family tends to be the one to come.
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And I have seen people who, you know, their, their person in life was their dog is how
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she was. And her dog did come back to get her.
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That's, that's cool. So you mentioned family a lot. Tell me if you've formed any, any of
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your own beliefs on families continuing after this life based on what you've observed.
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Yeah, my thought process, you know, I do think that families continue on, but family can
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mean different things because a lot of times your spouse will come get you. So, you know,
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that's not necessarily like a blood family. It is family, but for a while I thought maybe
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it was connected by like blood. But now that I've seen so many spouses come get their,
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their spouse, I think that it can also just be with who your family is, who your loved
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one is, you know, who you're connected to. And I've also very interestingly see people
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whose spouses have not come and gotten them, but rather people that you'll miss feel like
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they should have been with. I had one lady who basically feels like she should have married
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her high school sweetheart. And it just didn't work out for whatever reason. And he came and
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got her, which I always thought was very interesting. So whenever she said that he was there, I
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was like, Oh my gosh, that's strange. Like what did y'all talk? Like, did y'all see each
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other? Like what was what was up with that? And she was like that, that's who I should
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have been with. That's like who I should have married. I was like, Oh, that's interesting.
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That is interesting. Yeah, glad the spouse didn't hear that.
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I know, right? I think about that too. Do you ever have any questions that you ask
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people at that point? I want to a lot of times, but I try to just be open so they'll tell me.
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Is that kind of unprofessional to ask personal questions at that point?
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Yeah, because I get very curious and I want to, but a lot of times it would be just for my own
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curiosity instead of their experience. And so I try to, you know, be respectful of that and not
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ask too many questions that they're not giving up details. That makes sense. Well, you're a good nurse
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and I can tell your patients come first. They do. Hey, I just want to ask you sort of in general,
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what have you learned from all this? I've learned a lot from all of this. I'm a totally
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different person than when I started in hospice. I feel like I've really learned how to love people
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and care for people and to really care about what matters in life. I don't, I'm not one to really get
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wrapped up much in politics or, you know, things that I feel like won't matter on my death bed.
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I, you know, really, really try to live in the moment. And a lot of people tell me, you know,
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the kids, like the kids being young, it goes by so quickly. So I've really learned to cherish that.
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Pretty much work as little as possible. I know I do a lot with work and the book and all of that,
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but ever since working with them, I used to pick up a million hours and let's get the newest car and
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the newest house and, you know, all of that kind of stuff. And now it's just, you know, I work my
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hours and if I feel like I'm really needed, I'll pick up a couple extra, but my focus is more on
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our family and making sure that I'm really present because like you really realize you can't take any
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of it with you when you go. Do people seem sad when they realize that at the end or you mention
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they feel calm and at peace? Yeah. And, you know, usually when they're telling me advice is more
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near the beginning of their hospice journey, most people go through like a life reflection
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phase whenever they kind of go into hospice and sometimes people are like in a little bit of denial,
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like I can't believe this is actually the end. A lot of people tell me like, well, I always bounce
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back, maybe I'll bounce back. And then once they start to accept it, they'll go through like a life
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review. And when I see them, they'll start telling me stories about, you know, their life. And I
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really feel like they look back on it and they're like, what did I do well? What did I not do well?
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And I always am just very receptive to it because I really want to hear and like take from it and
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learn a lot. I always like to listen to that. And then they'll kind of go into the phase of like
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what we call actively dying and that calmness and that peace. But a lot of older men regret working
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so much. That's a good message to get out there. Yeah. It's interesting that people in this in
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between phase are sometimes going through a life review. Quite a few people that have near-death
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experiences have a life review. And one of the things that is very common that they tell me is
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I saw every little thing that happened, good and bad, but I didn't feel guilt. But I did understand
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how my actions affected other people and sometimes negatively, sometimes positively.
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Are these people telling you the same sort of thing or are they feeling guilt and shame for
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some of it? They definitely do feel guilt and shame sometimes. A lot of it will be positive,
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but sometimes they will recount negatives to me and say like, please don't do this,
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please don't do what I did, which I always appreciate. But it's kind of that same core message
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that you said that people think about how they treated others and wish that they would have
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treated others better. Or they really, you know, I had someone just just a couple weeks ago
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who was telling me that her and her mom had gotten into a fight over something very small
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and just pride. She just neither of them would apologize for their pride. And she was like,
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you know, I wish that we wouldn't have not spoken for a couple of years over that. You know,
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we really both let our pride get in the way of that. And I thought that was very interesting.
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So it sounds like there is a little bit of difference between a life review before and after.
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I'm going to speculate. I think I know why. Okay. And this is just my Eric's opinion.
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When people have already passed on and the people that have come back and been able to tell me
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about it, another common theme is they feel so much outpouring of love that they can't even put it
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into words. We don't have the right adjectives here to explain that unconditional, wonderful,
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overwhelming feeling of love. And if you think about it, if you're feeling that,
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you can't also feel negative emotions such as guilt, shame, hate, resentment, anything else.
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If love takes over, it's love and forgiveness and other positive emotions only.
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Yeah. I also think that we leave our ego with our body.
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That makes sense.
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You know, because I think ego is, you know, the biggest thing. That's something I've definitely
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have definitely worked on, especially being on social media and getting hateful comments and
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just saying, you know, my ego is getting the best to me when I want to respond hatefully as well.
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Yeah. I'm sorry that happens, but welcome to social media.
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It is. It is. But you know, it is what it is. But I like to think that we don't,
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you know, leave this world with it and that we are just like, you know, accepting of other people and
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you know, love, love, like you said, just pure love.
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I've had a couple of people tell me that on the other side, they saw what they believe were the
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pearly gates. Now we think of pearly gate says like this giant golden gate and Peter standing
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there with a clipboard and that kind of stuff. But what they explained to me was that's not it at all,
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but it is a place where we're being purified. We're letting go of all that baggage from earth,
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all the ego, all the resentment, all of that, and that can be a little bit of a process.
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Then we're in the right state of mind, spirit, whatever we want to call it,
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to enter into a better place. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think that's wonderful.
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And I hope that's what happens. It makes sense to me. And I tend to believe
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everything that people tell me about their experiences and that's a commonality.
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I've also had a handful of people that have gone at first during their experience,
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gone to a place that was like hell. Have you had anybody that as they were going through
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this dying process had some of that bad stuff they experienced? Yeah, I've had two patients.
399
00:35:28,520 --> 00:35:38,040
Tell me about that. So I had one who, and I would say it's two patients I've taken care of thousands.
400
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:43,080
So this is the very, very, very small minority because like you said, I don't like to sensationalize
401
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:51,960
things. But I did have one who I don't know. I don't know how this ever medically happened.
402
00:35:51,960 --> 00:35:59,160
She was in a coma for two weeks, which is not even possible. So no food, no water, no nothing
403
00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:06,600
for two weeks. That's not possible. No IV fluids or anything. Nothing. Nothing. Just laying in a bed
404
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:13,880
for two weeks. And she was already very frail and old. And I remember calling our doctor because I
405
00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:17,800
kept being like, it's going to be this weekend. And then Monday came and she's still alive. And I was
406
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:23,080
like, what in the world? And so I called our doctor at one point and was like,
407
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:27,800
what in the world is going on? Like, I know this woman has not had anything because I haven't
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00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:32,280
put an IV in her. She's not going to swallow anything. Like, I know she's had nothing. And
409
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:36,040
he was like, I think it's out of your hands. I think you just need to call the chaplain.
410
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:43,800
And so called the chaplain family's permission, he came right over her. She still didn't die for
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00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:48,120
like five more days. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. And it happened to be there because we
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00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:55,000
go daily whenever they're at the very end like that. And it happened to be there. And she,
413
00:36:56,120 --> 00:37:01,480
right before she died, she'd been in a coma for two weeks. She opened her eyes, looked at her
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00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:04,520
daughter, who was like on the other side of the bed. I was on one side, she was on the other side
415
00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:13,640
of the bed and screamed. And that is not possible to do. That is not possible at all. And then
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00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:19,240
she died. And this is the most scared I've ever been. I'm calling our doctor and being like,
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00:37:19,240 --> 00:37:26,600
wow, I'm not touching her. Like I had to pronounce, but I'm not doing it. And so he came over and he
418
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did it. I was like, I'm not doing it. And this is the most scared I've ever been in my entire life.
419
00:37:31,320 --> 00:37:36,040
It's not possible. Let me just fill in quickly for people what that means that I learned from
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00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:41,800
your book is part of your job is when someone passes away, you put a stethoscope on their heart
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00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:48,280
for two minutes and then do some kind of declaration of death. So you're saying in this case,
422
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:53,720
you were too scared to do that. Yeah. And thankfully the daughter was like, I think she was just
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00:37:53,720 --> 00:38:00,920
trying to tell me she loved me. And I was like, yeah. Okay. Sure. If that's what you want to
424
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:06,920
take it, I'm glad you're taking it that way, but I'm scared out of my mind. So I had that one. And
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00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:15,080
then just recently, I can't say how recently, but very recently, for the first time, I have had to
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00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:22,840
take care of someone who harmed someone else and were in jail for it for a very long time. And
427
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:27,960
interestingly enough, if you go in hospice, they will let you out of jail sometimes. So instead
428
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:31,320
of being in a controlled environment in the jail, they send you home and then they send us into
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00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:38,600
homes alone. Makes so much sense to me. Scary. Yeah. I guess they're sick enough that they can't
430
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:47,320
hurt you, hopefully. He was. But it was very scary going in. Yeah. He was picking his skin off.
431
00:38:48,680 --> 00:38:55,400
And it was very scary to witness. So I kept giving him medicine and to, but it was like, wasn't working.
432
00:38:55,400 --> 00:39:01,000
And yeah, he was like literally picking his skin off. And I was like, Oh my goodness,
433
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:06,040
like I've never seen anything like that. And why do you think that was? Was it pain? Was it? What
434
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:11,480
was it? I don't know. I really don't know why he was doing it. And he couldn't tell me why he was
435
00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:17,240
doing it. And you know, it didn't really make sense medically why he was doing it. I've never
436
00:39:17,240 --> 00:39:23,240
seen anyone do that before. I know he wasn't on heroin. We had, you know, seen people do that.
437
00:39:23,240 --> 00:39:28,600
I know he wasn't on it. So it just was very concerning to watch. But there's only been two
438
00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:34,520
times that I have seen it. So I do think that there is some sort of punishment too. I just don't
439
00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:40,440
know if it's forever. And I don't know if it's for the reasons most people think it's for. I don't
440
00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:47,960
think it's for like minor things. Yeah. Well, and these people that had those experiences during
441
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:55,960
their NDE, it wasn't forever. In fact, it was quite brief. Yes. So that's, that's the happy ending,
442
00:39:55,960 --> 00:40:01,080
I guess. Speaking of happy endings. Okay, those were a couple of scary stories. Would you leave
443
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:07,800
us with, would you mind telling one beautiful story that we can all relate to one of your
444
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:13,720
experiences? It can be from your book or not. That's up to you. Okay. This one I love. It's not
445
00:40:13,720 --> 00:40:17,240
in my book, but sometimes I wish I would have put it in there. If I ever write another one,
446
00:40:17,240 --> 00:40:23,800
I'll put it in there. I'm sure you will be writing a sequel to this. This is not a beginning and
447
00:40:23,800 --> 00:40:31,000
this is a book you could, you could write 10 more volumes of. Thank you. So one of my, you know,
448
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:39,640
I think the human mind and the spirit is quite amazing. So I had a patient on who was a little
449
00:40:39,640 --> 00:40:45,640
older than me. He was like in his mid 30s and he had cancer and I always asked my patients when I
450
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:50,680
first meet them, what are your goals so that I know what is going to be considered good for them
451
00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:55,720
and their family? You know, sometimes that's pain control. Sometimes that is being awake and conscious
452
00:40:55,720 --> 00:41:01,480
as long as possible so they can spend as much time. Sometimes it's a trip. He said, I want to
453
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:08,760
see my son be born. So I looked over at his wife who I could not even tell was pregnant
454
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:15,960
and she was just like a few weeks pregnant and I was like in my head I was like, well,
455
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:22,520
shit, like there's no way. Like this person has like a week left. Like there's no way.
456
00:41:23,240 --> 00:41:31,000
And I was like, that's damn it. And so I was like, okay, I just kept coming week after week. She kept
457
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:38,840
growing her, you know, and he just was hanging on. I mean, he was eating like two bites of food a day
458
00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:48,440
for like nine months. And he did, he made it to the birth of his baby. And I got to go and see them
459
00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:55,000
in the hospital, which was quite amazing and hold their baby and just say, you know, we did it, we
460
00:41:55,000 --> 00:42:03,320
made it. And he let go very soon after that two days later he died. But he held on. And I still
461
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:08,280
don't even know how he did. But I think that, you know, the mind can do amazing things, the spirit
462
00:42:08,280 --> 00:42:14,360
can do amazing things. You mentioned in your book, a couple of situations like that where someone held
463
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:20,520
on for a child to be able to have time to come visit or something else. Does that happen a lot?
464
00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:27,800
Yeah, we seem to be able to control our death, which is very crazy to me. And so sometimes people will
465
00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:33,880
tell me, like, well, my grandmother died after I left, like, why didn't she die when I was there?
466
00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:39,720
I felt so guilty because I wanted to be there. And I'll tell them I've seen that too. And I think
467
00:42:39,720 --> 00:42:47,480
that some people want to die alone. They don't want people to see them die. And I find that that
468
00:42:47,480 --> 00:42:53,080
usually correlates to their personality. So if they were someone who is outgoing and like to
469
00:42:53,080 --> 00:42:59,800
have people around them, they will wait for people to die. And then there's people, especially like
470
00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:07,320
my older men who are a little bit more reserved and stoic and don't necessarily want it to be like a
471
00:43:08,040 --> 00:43:14,120
spectacle. They will wait till someone goes to sleep or went to the bathroom even just like that
472
00:43:14,120 --> 00:43:20,120
quickly or just like walks down the hallway to answer the door. I've had a man who I know was
473
00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:25,080
very like reserved, who I knocked on the door, his wife walked down the hallway to answer the front
474
00:43:25,080 --> 00:43:30,440
door and he died. And I think that people will wait, but I think it can go both ways. Sometimes
475
00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:37,960
people don't want it to be like an event. Yeah. All right. Hey, I appreciate you being on the show.
476
00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:43,400
Thank you so much for having me. I'm going to ask you a very personal question that you can answer
477
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:48,280
or not before we go. Have you thought about maybe who's going to come and get you when it's your
478
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:54,200
finally your time? Yeah, absolutely. If it were to happen soon, I think my mother-in-law would
479
00:43:54,200 --> 00:44:03,000
definitely come. She's in my book. She died of brain cancer a couple years ago and my great-grandmother.
480
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:08,040
And then hopefully I'm eight years younger than my husband. So I'm thinking he'll probably come.
481
00:44:08,040 --> 00:44:15,000
That's great. All right, Nurse Hadley, thanks for being on the show. We will have links to your
482
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:21,560
book and stuff in the show notes. It's not out yet, is it? June 13th. Okay, that's right around the
483
00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:28,840
corner. Can it be preordered now? It is. I'm preordered right now. All right. Thanks a lot. Thank you.
484
00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:35,160
Thanks again for listening and remember to share this podcast.
485
00:44:35,160 --> 00:44:41,160
To be notified when the next episode goes live, follow us on your podcasting app or click over
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00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:47,640
to roundtripteath.com and sign up for our email newsletter. One last thing, we are continually
487
00:44:47,640 --> 00:44:53,560
trying to improve this podcast and we value your feedback. If you have a comment about what you like
488
00:44:53,560 --> 00:44:58,680
or what we can do better or a near-death experiencer that we should have on the show,
489
00:44:58,680 --> 00:45:04,440
send an email to eric at roundtripteath.com and that's eric with a C. Until then,
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00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:09,240
I wish you everything good that you're looking for in this life and the next.
