Living Well
Death is not Well Understood
EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
Death is a process, not the fixed instant recorded on a chart. In Eve Glicksman’s Washington Post article ‘Can We Choose the Moment We Die?’ Doug encounters physician Sam Parnia’s study of resuscitated patients who reported awareness after their hearts stopped. The piece turns from unsettled science to bedside conduct, where oncologist Charles von Gunten advises families to speak and behave naturally around the dying.
A Note on the Original Text
Doug’s writings are presented as originally written. Spelling, punctuation, and grammatical irregularities have been retained to preserve his words and the integrity of the original record.
ORIGINAL WRITING
The title of this post is identical to the title of a section of an article by Eve Glicksman in the Health & Science section of the 4 October ’22 issue of The Washington Post titled Is it possible to time the moment of your death.
“‘It’s impossible to know, let alone prove of disprove,” says Sam Parnia, about whether we can influence our time of death. Parnia is an expert in the scientific study of cardia arrest and death and an associate professor of critical care medicine at New York University Grossman School of Medicine.
What Parnia is sure about from his research is that death is not a fixed moment and that it is not well understood. Parnia has studied thousands of testimonies from people who were resuscitated after being considered dead. They consistently described feeling conscious, lucid and aware of what was going on after their heart stopped.
‘Calling the time of death when the heart stops beating and the body and brain stop functioning reflects social convention rather than the science of what is happening to the body biologically,’ Parnia says. ‘Studies have shown categorically that our brain cells do not die for many hours after we die.’
Von Gunten advises people to behave around the dying the same as always—not being afraid they will break if you hold them, for example.
‘You don’t have to keep children quiet and lights don’t have to be dimmed,’ he says. ‘Whispering outside the door is the worst thing you can do if that person always wants to know everything.’
Ideally, the dying person will have talked to family and friends about their end-of-life wishes beforehand, Caswell says. Who do you want at your bedside, or do you prefer solitude? Do you want to listen to a cherished symphony during your last hours or have someone read a favorite poem? It’s a hard conversation to have but everyone benefits from that openness, Caswell says.
Dying is the last thing you do in life. Why shouldn’t it be exactly as you want it, and maybe even the moment you want it.”