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