Hospice nurse who's seen 'hundreds' of people die reveals the most common regret patients have
Joe Yates
Featured Image Credit: hospicenursejulie/Instagram/Getty Images/Halfpoint Images
If you were on your death bed you'd imagine you'd probably regret not exploring the world more or spending more intimate moments with your loved ones.
Well, according to Julie McFadden, who works as a nurse in a hospice in the US, those are not the most common regrets. In fact, 'hundreds' of people actually consider one thing to be greater than all.
Speaking to Rob Moore on his podcast Disruptors, she revealed how she had accompanied around 100 people through their final moments - which she described as an 'honor' when she is allowed to 'witness their final breaths'.
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McFadden, who spent eight years working as an intensive care unit nurse before moving to a hospice, explained how your financial position shapes your end-of-life if you're terminally ill in the US.
She told Moore: "Generally speaking it helps to have money to die well which I think is really unfortunate.
"The people who have to take care of you while you're dying at home, which is 24-hour-a-day care, are your family. But guess what – no one's paying you to do that.
"If you're working class and you just make enough money to survive here, you don't make enough money to stop working and take care of a dying loved one. So, you have to pay someone to do that, and that's really, really expensive."
Adding: "Only people with pretty extreme wealth can do that, which I think is really unfortunate. So, I don't think money does make you happy, but it helps it certainly takes stress off of the situation."
But what is the most common regret people have?
Well, heartbreakingly McFadden revealed that a large portion of her patients regret not appreciating how precious life was when they were in good health.
"I think the biggest thing I hear from people [who are] dying is that they wish they would have appreciated how well they felt before," McFadden shared.
"The main thing people say, that I don't hear a lot of people mention, is 'I wish I would have appreciated my health'."
Since working in a hospice, McFadden has began appreciating the little things in her life through a 'gratitude list' which she writes in every night.
Some of the things included in her list are the simple things like the ability to see things with her eyes or that she has working legs.
"I like the fact that I can breathe, I'm walking around, I can feel the sunshine – little things like that," she added.