SYSK Selects: How Dying Works

Chuck and Josh have covered just about every aspect of death except dying itself. Here, they fulfill the death suite of podcasts with an in-depth look at just how people die, what happens to the body during the dying process and how people accept death -- and what they regret not having done while they lived.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everyone, Hope you're having a good weekend. Here's a
podcast about dying from September nine, two. Uh. It is
My Stuff You Should Know. Select pick for the week
How Dying Works. This is a tough one, but necessary
and this may be as much or more so than
any other show we've ever done. We got a lot
of feedback on on just understanding the process of dying

(00:20):
literally physiologically. Has helped so many people over the years,
over the past five or six years, when their own
relatives are going through this kind of thing. So I'm
glad it's help people out in the past and hopefully
it will in the future. So, uh, enjoy maybe the
wrong word, but I hope you learned something today with
How Dying Works. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a

(00:41):
production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles w
Chuck Bryant, How you do It? Hey, and Jerry's over there.
Jerry for the first time, just saw a meme that's

(01:01):
been out for a couple of years. Yeah, that's that happened.
That's like when you rec rolled me like two years
after it was popular. You're like, isn't that the best? Well,
I was lying in Wait, yeah, I thought that happened. So,
And there's nothing more obnoxious than sending someone something and
be like sold it two years ago. Well, I'm so sorry.
I tried to show you something funny, right, you know,
but yeah, Jerry just saw the do we even say

(01:25):
the mumble mouthed reporter maybe, Yeah, the lady who supposedly
had a migraine but appeared to have had a stroke,
reporting from the Grammy's in Los Angeles a couple of
years ago. Yeah. I still don't know whether it's okay
to laugh at that, because I don't know really what
happened to her. Well, we didn't laugh. We very solemnly
showed Jerry. Yeah yeah, and she laughed terrible. Jerry Station, Um,

(01:49):
I've got one for you. I've got a bit of
an in show. It's not much, so get your hopes
up all right. Um? Have you ever heard of the
Population Reference Bureau? No? You have, big because I've mentioned
it before. I've mentioned this this article before. It's on
PRB dot org. It's called how Many People have Ever
Lived on Earth? And I don't know what we've mentioned

(02:11):
and maybe the population episode or something. But it's a
really cool little article by this demographer named Carl Hobb
h A U. B and he Um. There's even a
video of him explaining it if you couldn't get what
he was going with. But hobb Um he reckons that
modern humans people who are virtually indistinguishable from you or me,

(02:32):
aside from the fact that they're not wearing like any clothes.
Really um showed up about fifty thou years ago. So
hobb puts the population of humanity at two uh in
fifty BC. Okay, so from that point to two thousand eleven,
he extrapolates, does the math, does this little demography thing,

(02:56):
and hobb comes up with the number that one hundred
and seven billion, six hundred two million, seven hundred and
seven thousand, seven hundred nine people have ever lived between
fifty thousand BC and two thousand eleven. See, that's pretty neat,
it is. That's a lot of people. He says. That

(03:16):
means about six point five of that are alive right
now or were in two thousand eleven. Al Right, so
we're dying off. That's the point. All one hundred and
seven billion, six hundred two million, seven hundred seven thousand,
seven hundred ninety one of those people had one thing
in common, one thing aside from being humans, no, not

(03:40):
even not even yeah, yeah, they didn't have tax and
in fifty thousand BC they had running from sabre tooth
tigers death. It was death. That's the one thing all
one hundred and seven billions, six hundred two millions, seven
hundred seven thousand, seven hundred ninety one of those people
had in common. You know, when I was thinking of
your intro driving here today, I thought that'd be funny

(04:02):
if Josh was like, how long people been dying? Chuck,
and you know what, this wasn't that far off. I
was like, he wouldn't do that. You're like, it'd be
way too boring. That's a good number. I like that.
Hundred seven billion, six hundred two million, seven one thousand
seven seven Yeah, yeah, and that includes you and me, Pal.

(04:27):
You know what that means. You're gonna die. I'm gonna die,
Jerry's gonna die at least two or three times. We're
all gonna die. Yeah. This is our dying podcast, and
we have covered just about every aspect of dying. Can
you die from a broken heart? How rigor mortis works.
What's the worst way to die? Um? Is there a

(04:51):
best way to die? Did we do that? That was
kind of in the is there was way to die? Yeah? Um,
we've covered everything from autopsy, peak oil, what can be
done with the dead body? Ninja's Yeah, well Ninja, at
least you should know better than that. Yeah. We really
have danced around everything except just how dying works. And

(05:11):
this is gonna be a sad podcast in many ways
and gruesome in some ways. Yeah, because we're gonna touch
on some of this stuff we hit on in like
rigor mortris and autopsies and the actual dying process. Right,
But I mean, so brace yourself. And I've mentioned this
guy scores of times at least, but as the it's

(05:32):
a Charles Man. You thinking of the great psychologist Ernest Becker.
Shout out to our pal Joe Randazzo, who's like in
the Becker Now, Ernest, Ernest, Ernest, you're thinking of Max Ernest. Okay,
Ernest Becker um wrote the Denial of Death seminal work
that basically says, we're all just doing everything we came

(05:55):
to think about our own demise, and there is some
sort of health, whether it's spiritual, emotional. There's some sort
of health or well being I think from facing the
fact that you're going to die and talking about it. Yeah,
so let's talk about death, baby, Let's talk about you
and me. Let's do it. Okay. So Molly Edmonds Um

(06:19):
who used to be on Sminty stef Mom never told
you we call it sminty Um wrote this one, and
I think it is interesting. And I usually don't like
it when article's day like the definition of blah blah blah.
But it's kind of interesting that in the first encyclopedia
it was just the separation of the soul from the body,
and now it's you know, thirty times that long in

(06:40):
the encyclopedia, right, And that's just sort of indicative of
how we used to think of it and how I
don't know if it's ironic or not, but how medical
science has complicated that over the years. Yeah, well it's
definitely ironic because I mean, we used to be confident
that we understood death. It's like that person isn't moving anymore.
If you ask him what he wants to eat, he's
not going to respond. If you choose something for him

(07:03):
to eat, like a block of cheese, it's not going
to be swallowed like, yeah, that's death. And since there
was perhaps a lot more religiousness associated with death and
dying than there is today, um, that kind of underscored
the belief and death. It's the soul departing from the body.
And what what more do you want to know, egghead?

(07:24):
It's death? Well yeah, and uh, way back, you know,
a fe d years ago, you'd call him a priest
and they they'd check the body, see if it's breathing,
and say, yep, they're dead, and that was pretty much it.
The doctor wasn't even involved at that point. Well, there
may not have even been such a thing as doctors,
and if there were, they were wearing like masks that
made them look like crows to protect them from the plague.

(07:45):
So they weren't any better at its ascertaining death than
a priest was. That's true. When doctors did come along
and they invented things like the stethoscope, they could actually
check and see if there was a heartbeat. Before that,
there was bal force test, which I couldn't find out
a lot about this other than you stick needles into
the heart with little flags on it and see if

(08:06):
the flags move. I think that's pretty straightforward. Really, yeah,
I think that's about it. I mean, that's the test.
I'll buy that. And there were other tests that like
a priest who may have come to say whether you're
dead or not, would use like placing a feather above
the mouth or around the mouth or knows to see
if it moves. Um, the old mirror mirror trick that's

(08:27):
still you know, useful, it is, but only if the
mouth is still moist. If it's a dried mouth, it's
probably not going to fog up a mirror. Well, if
it's not breathing, it's not gonna fall up a mirror,
right exactly. Um. So I said that medical science has
complicated it, and that's exactly what's happened over the years,

(08:48):
because as we progressed with medicine, we discovered a lot
of ways to actually reverse death, like bring people back
from the dead, whether it's something as easy as CPR
or as complicated as you know, machines to help you
breathe and feed you. Right, And not only that, we've
entered this really awkward period um in human medical history

(09:12):
where the machines that can tell us whether someone is
alive or not are more advanced than our machines that
can bring a person back from death. Yeah. So we
have ways to sustain the body, but not necessarily the
the person, depending on your definition of death, like the

(09:34):
faintest trace of a brain wave maybe right. Yeah. So
we went from holding a feather under somebody's mouth or
knows to see if they're alive, to using MRI s
to see whether there's electrical activity. And we're finding that
all of these old signs, these old outward signs of
death don't necessarily mean that the person is dead. And

(09:56):
even if the person is dead, we have technology, like
you were saying, to resuscitate them. The question is if
we resuscitate them and they're still not talking, they still
don't tell you what they want to eat. Yeah, are
they alive? Well? Yeah, and we in this hasn't been
that long, you know, I mean in the fifty two
thousand years or whatever the people have been dying. It's

(10:16):
only been the past you know, sixty something that we've
had to come up with terms like persistent vegetative state
and irreversible coma because of those machines that can resuscitate
or sustain a body. And that was when the French
neurologists describe the coma DePass, which was a state beyond

(10:37):
coma basically uh, brain death, although that didn't come along
until technically until nineteen when Harvard Medical School did UH
basically defined it for the first time. Yeah, although they
didn't even call it brain death at the time. What
they call it just irreversible coma like you're not coming back.

(10:59):
Brain death was attacked on later. Um. So yeah, so
comma to pass umge, persistent vegetative state, brain death. Um,
all these things would indicate again that you're dead. The
problem is is we have these machines that can keep
your body warm, and can keep your chest rising and falling,
can keep your body going indefinitely. Um. But the thing

(11:22):
is is there's something that's not there, and does that
mean you're dead. There's been a lot of talk about, um,
exactly what constitutes death. Defining death is a very very
difficult thing to do, especially with through the advancement of
medical technology. It's kind of changed every time you come
with it. Okay, I got it. This is the definition

(11:44):
of death. Medical technology can provide some picture of a
state of consciousness or life that throws a wrench in
the works, you know, yeah, and it's um. Actually, after
it took one a presidential commission is when they finally
in the United States wrote a paper called Defining Death, Medical,

(12:07):
Legal and Ethical Issues and the Determination of Death. That
was the basis for the Uniform Determination of Death Act,
which basically rejected the Harvard idea that the higher brain,
which is like when your personality and your memories are gone,
the cortical brain that means you're dead. And they rejected

(12:27):
that in favor of the whole brain, which includes the
brain stem, which is what keeps you breathing and functioning. Um,
they rejected in favor of that. So Harvard was like, right, Um,
I I I don't know. I think I subscribed to
the higher brain death definition of death. Yeah. Um, the
brain stem, I'm yeah, it's pretty significant. Sure, Um, you

(12:51):
can be born with just a brain stem. We talked
about Mike the headless chicken before. Yeah, Um, he had
his head cut off which included his brain. His brain
stem still there and he's a chicken, so it didn't
really matter. Um, but that is a there's a huge
division between the two because there's a big difference between
breathing and being able to swallow for yourself and making

(13:14):
a conscious decision whether again what you want to eat
right there, or having memories or just reacting to people
aside from like you know, physical reaction. Right. Yes, and
that's one of the one of the there's a whole
article on brain death. Maybe we'll do that one. I
thought we did that now I think we did it
in the organ donation Procurement episode. We talked about brain

(13:37):
death and testing for brain death like they shoot ice
cold water in your ear canal. Definitely remember covering at
some point. Yeah, I think it was in the organ
donation moment where maybe living wills. Obviously we might have
touched on it there. We did. We did wills, but
we hit on living wills. But you know you mentioned organs.
I don't think we said that. That was a big
kind of a quandary. In the nineteen sixties. Um, in

(14:00):
late I'm sorry, mid nineteen fifties, and then really in
the nineteen sixties is when we went oregan transplant crazy.
Um actually kind of not just the United States, all
over the world. Doctors said, hey, we can actually give
people a shot at life because we can now transplant
kidneys and lungs and hearts. The problem was, and this

(14:21):
is sort of one of the sad things that Molly
points out, is that the definition of death kind of
came about, was hurried along, maybe because we needed organs
from these bodies that we're still technically alive, which is
a very ghoulish proposition. I mean, it makes sense from
a very utilitarian standpoint. It's like this guy doesn't even
know he's laying there. Yeah, and he's got a great

(14:44):
kidney that could go to his sister who knows that
she needs a kidney or she's gonna die, and she's
got kids that she wants to hang out with, and like,
can put this kidney to good use, So let's let's
figure this out. But um, as Molly says, like most
developed countries have signed onto the brains where it's like
you're brain can no longer keep you alive, like on

(15:07):
your own, you can't swallow, you can't take a breath
for yourself, so you're dead. Um. The problem is that's
that's just that's different. That's a much m it's much more.
It's a narrower definition of deaths. And I think that
that probably rules out a lot of people who might
otherwise be used to harvest organs harvest I know. Um,

(15:32):
all right, so let's talk about death itself. It's funny
that you, well, it's not funny, but out of all
the different ways people can die, I thought it seems
simplified to break it down into three ways, but that's
really kind of the three ways. Yeah. I think we
talked about that in autopsies two. Right. Yeah, it can
be an accident obviously. Um, that's called the UPSI death. Yeah,

(15:52):
the violent death, which is also an opsie. I guess, well,
not an it's tragic, yeah, homicider suicide. So took, let's
talk about what it's like to die from different types
of death. You dug this upo, Yeah, because I really
wanted to know, like what is it like to drown
or to be burned alive? Yeah? And people have survived

(16:16):
some of these things, didn't come back to tell the tale.
That's obviously the only way we're going to find this
stuff out or from lucky people. Um, drowning, I've always
heard drowning is a good way to go because it's
not so painful. Yeah. And then like the brain supposedly
releases endorphins at the end. Yeah, same with freezing I've
heard too. Maybe true. Um, although uh, drowning victims have

(16:36):
reported uh aside from the panic, a tearing and burning
sensation when your water starts filling with lungs and quickly,
hopefully really quickly after that is the feeling of calmness
that overcomes in tranquility. Yeah. Um, heart attack. You've got
the squeezing chests, pain in your chest or your left arm. Yeah,

(16:58):
like I weight on your chest. Um. What I didn't
know is that because of the heart not delivering oxygen
to the brain any longer, you can lose consciousness. Um,
within like ten seconds. Um, I didn't realize that. I
thought like it was there's a lot more to it. Well,
it depends. You know, everyone has their own signature heart
attack as well. Um. If you bleed out, I imagine

(17:23):
this is not one of the best ways to go. Um.
After about a liter and a half of blood, you're
gonna be thirsty and weak and anxious. Anything over too,
You're gonna be pretty confused and dizzy and probably lose
consciousness pretty soon after. And all of that would be
that would relate to how fast you're losing blood, and
it would probably be very unpleasant depending on how you're

(17:45):
losing blood, Like why because you would imagine that if
you're stabbed in the gut or something like that. Yeah,
you got the attendant pain in addition to this dying
from loss of blood or like man reservoir dogs. Yeah,
that was like one of the most are ways to
open a movie or not open. But they cut right
to that scene after the diner scene, right after the
walk Yeah. Yeah. Um. Electrocution. Um, if you're in your

(18:10):
house and you get electrocuted, could stop your heart right
then and there. And if you're in an electric chair,
you may have actually heated your brain up to the
point where you die or suffocated to death. Right. But
the there's indications that being electrocuted with enough voltage that

(18:31):
instantly you lose consciousness. That's the idea probably with the
quote un quote humane I'm sorry quote humane end quote.
I'm gonna stop doing that. I'm going back to quote
unquote what if you fall from a height. If you
fall from a height, supposedly time slows, which is awful. Yeah,

(18:53):
it's like, well, you're gonna experience all of this. Yeah,
that's uh. Yeah, the idea that you that you really
can take it all in. That's really awful. So they've
they did a study of UM jumpers from the Golden
gate Bridge, which is seventy five ms what is that

(19:15):
two hundred thirty ft it's high enough, and they they
found evidence that a lot of them died from exploded lungs,
exploded hearts, um. Their organs were all cut up from
their ribs, which would indicate death was pretty much instantaneous. Yeah.
We talked about that on something too recently, I think,

(19:35):
or maybe I heard it someone else talking about it.
It's pretty bad way to go. What the Golden gate
Bridge or just just falling dying from a height? Yeah,
I can't remember. I was talking to about jumping in
the water. I was like, what actually kills you when
you jump in the water from the eye and it
was like your organs smashed into each other and explode. Yeah,
I guess from any height. Yeah, when you when you
die from that would be from organ explosion or whatever. Yeah,

(19:58):
or you know the brain obviously if you go ahead first. Yeah,
that's UM. The long drop back in the day with
although they still you can get hung in certain states
if you choose really yeah, Washington State, and now you
can huh. Um, you can choose that as your method,
they'll build you the gallows and uh. The idea that

(20:19):
there is you want your neck to snap, otherwise he
died slower and you know, suffocate. The problem is there's
a study of thirty or four prisoners that found four
fifths of them died partly from asphyxiation. Really, that's the
wrong way to hang somebody, if you if you don't
snap their neck or they don't lose consciousness immediately, Um,

(20:42):
they sit there and hang and die of asphyxiation. That's
a bad way to go. Uh. And speaking of bad,
I think being burned to death maybe one of the worst.
And then what we came up with on the I
think so because you feel it, and you'd think, like
your nerve endings, that's what I thought, like, Oh, your
nerve endings are probably like stop responding quickly. But apparently

(21:05):
that's not the case. No, not only is that not
the case, apparently you're fire further sensitizes your nerve endings,
so you feel even more pain. Yeah, but luckily most people,
I think the vast majority of people who die in
fires actually die from smoke inhalation before they ever feel
pain from fire. Yeah, that are well, I don't know

(21:27):
about before they feel pain, but hopefully quick enough. Well,
you know, carbon monoxide sinks, so like well there's a
lot of smoke you are download to the ground and
that's where the carbon carbon monoxide is. So you're annailing
mostly that, So it's possible it's before it's true. And
then the natural death which is uh passing of old

(21:48):
age or disease. And here in this country we have
kind of whipped up a lot of the disease over
the years into into they've sniffed them off the case right, Well,
it depends like some of the ones that like kill
undeveloped countries, like diarrheal disease like dying from diarrhea. UM,
you don't have that much in the US, but we
have chronic disease like obesity and diabetes and UM cardio

(22:13):
pulmonary disease. UM, we have that downpat. I've got the
top five here. Actually, I think they're all in there,
aren't they. UM Heart is number one, Cancer is number two, UM,
lower respiratory is number three, strokers for an accidents or
five and it's a huge drop. Cancer and heart are
close to six. Hundred thousand, and then number three at

(22:35):
lower respiratories only a hundred and thirty eight thousand. So
that shows you what cancer and heart disease are doing
in the United States at least. And the upshot of
all this is that most of us are not going
to die suddenly, um, either by accident or by violent death. Yeah,
dying of old days didn't used to be a thing. No,
it was like, like a lot of ways to die,
but that wasn't one of them. You ticked off some

(22:57):
traveling night, or there is a dispute over grazing rights. Plague, Yeah,
you walked into a bear cave. Yeah, the plagues another
but um, yeah, old ages. It's kind of a new thing.
But it's one of the most um prevalent forms of
death in developed countries. It actually has its own name, frailty, Yeah,

(23:21):
which is great. It's sad, but it's great that now
we can live out our lives and and we're about
to talk about it. But sometimes the body, just like
any other machine, just stops working. It's not designed to
keep going indefinitely, and ultimately the system shuts down as
its subsystems shut down. Dude is shutting down every second

(23:42):
right right now are shutting down very slowly and for
that reason because you and I are both dying. I
guess once you're born, you start dying, or after you
stop growing, you start dying, right Is that just the
positive outlooker? But I mean like you're shedding sails and
like this is like the dying. We're in the midst

(24:02):
of the dying process. Just this natural system is in
the winding down, although it takes decades and we still
have plenty to do. Like you said, you're dying, I'm dying.
That's why they have a more specific definition of death,
which is um called active dying. Like you and I
are not actively dying right now. No, no, uh. Instead,

(24:25):
if we are actively dying, we're in the midst of
the dying process. Yeah, it has started. The dying processes started.
The descent, if you will, has started, right. So, Um,
all this kind of happens since different types of cells
die at different speeds, that's what it is. It's cell death.
Cellular I don't want to let the cat out of
the bag, but oxygen doesn't happen to different parts of

(24:49):
the body. Your cells are gonna die exactly, um, And
so as the cells die at different speeds, different systems
are going to shut down. But just from watching frail
people die of old age, um, they kind of have
like this, the the order in which it happens kind
of downpad. So there's the UM, there's the pre active

(25:12):
dying phase, which can take about three weeks, starts about
three weeks before death, two or three weeks. And then
there's the active dying phase, which can take a few days.
And obviously that's not set in stone. None of this
is set in stone, but this is all just um
kind of cumulative knowledge from observations of people dying in

(25:33):
like hospice and things like that. So you've got the
pre active phase of dying UM, and like I said,
it starts a couple of weeks ahead of the actual
death because we have this is a big deal right now,
what we're talking about, Like it's becoming very clear, um,
in our modern age, that death is not an instant,

(25:53):
it's not a moment. There's a process. Yeah, well unless
it isn't an instant. But yeah, old age die, yes,
or like other kinds of dying. But how about non
accidental dying. Okay, we'll call it that, because that's like
the instantaneous thing, right, and even sometimes in a very
short scale that can follow some of these you know,

(26:15):
oh yeah, I forgot it's audio, yes, nodding my head.

(26:49):
So the preactive phase of dying, Chuck, what do we got? Well, Um,
you're gonna start sleep, You're gonna get sleepy, You're not
gonna have much energy. You're gonna start sleeping more and more. Uh,
your skin might become cooler to the touch, might turn
a little bluish gray. Yeah, cyanosis. So what that's called
I was with us, it's just becoming oxygen deprived. Like

(27:12):
apparently your body's like, Okay, don't really need to use
the legs anymore because we're bedridden. So I'm gonna start
focusing more of the circulation on the inner organs. That
makes sense. Yeah, well that probably causes the modeling too,
which is, uh, your your skin can become sort of
reddish like splotchy, with reddish blue splotches as well. Right,
you're gonna, um, you're gonna be a little restless probably, Yeah,

(27:36):
you're gonna possibly come off as confused. Um, You're you're
not gonna be hungry. No, you're gonna probably withdraw from um,
social activities. You're gonna become a little a little withdrawn. Um.
You might wanna settle unfinished business with family. You might
request family come visit you for that kind of thing.
Oh sure, the non physical parts. That's definitely something you'd

(28:00):
be interested in doing. Right, But that's like, um, apparently
something that that people intuitively know like they need to.
Apparently patients know when they're dying. I've seen that happen.
And one of the one of the signs from UM
that's mentioned in hospice care palliative care UM is that

(28:21):
the patient may even state I'm dying, like I started,
it's coming. That's pretty common. Um. Yeah, and that's sad
that when you realize like, all right, this is this
is it, Like I feel myself, I'm gonna be gone soon.
But that's neat though, especially if you yeah, if you're like, okay,

(28:43):
I'm gonna put everything in order then die happy or peacefully. Yeah,
that's neat that you have that that time to to
take care of that. Yeah, if you're fortunate enough to
go that way for sure. Back to physically, UM, you
you won't be able to heal from a wound or
and infection any longer. Yeah, you might um lose control

(29:05):
of your bladder and your bowels over the course of
some time. Um, you might be in pain, but chances
are here in the modern world they're gonna take care
of you in that respect, right. And again that's called
palliative care, where at some point it's very obvious that
you're going to die, um, and a lot of it
can be based on what you want, even even um,

(29:27):
without your wishes. There's probably a point in time where
medical science says, there's nothing we can do for you. Um,
we just want to make you comfortable, exactly, so we're
gonna give you pain meds. We're gonna like your your
care is being transferred over from a physician to who's
you know, wants to save your life and keep you

(29:48):
going to hospice workers, health care professionals who are trained
to just keep you as comfortable as possible for the
for the duration of your life. Right, Man, hats off
to those people. Yeah, like all health care professionals, of course,
but man, hospice nurses as tough stuff. You've got to be, like,
you've got to be made of the right qualities as

(30:10):
a human to be able to tackle something like that
and still get up and go to work every day
like they're literally in the business of dying. I mean,
very valuable, valuable service people provide. So that's the Um,
that's the preactive phase. That's the I'm getting ready to die.
I got a couple of weeks and all of my
systems are starting to wind down. In the active phase,

(30:31):
the systems are starting to shut down. Um, you may
not have consciousness, and if you do, you may. Uh.
If you are able to be aroused from conscious from unconsciousness,
you're gonna slip right back into it again. Possibly. Um,
you are probably and apparently families find this very disconcerting.

(30:53):
You're probably going to talk about people who are dead
as if they're in the room or you can see
them or hear them. Yeah, it's just just the mind slipping.
They don't know. Um. Hospice workers, from what I can tell,
tend to just treat it like it's real, treated on
its own terms. They're not saying it's real or it's

(31:13):
a hallucination or something like that, And they advise families
not to treat it like a hallucination, just to not
to correct them. Yeah, that makes sense, because you're there
to provide comfort, not say no, Grandpa, grandma has been
gone for years. Exactly why would you want to do that.
There is an exception to that. You would want to
do that if they're fearful from their visions, then you

(31:34):
can say that's it's not real. It's just you your brain,
that's not real or whatever. Again, all about comfort, yes,
but you don't want to contradict them if they're happy
or even saying it in a neutral tone. It's only
if they're they're fearful that you want to say that.
But apparently families are kind of like, oh god, they're
gone crazy, you know. But it's a it's a natural

(31:56):
part of the active dying process. Breathings can to become
really weird. Um, the patient's gonna stop breathing for disconcertingly
long periods of time. Yeah, that's just called Cheney strokes
respiration stokes sorry, Cheney Stokes name for John Cheney and
William Stokes obviously the first dudes who described it. Let's

(32:18):
get all the press quick. Deep breaths, sometimes very slow ones,
like you said, sometimes stopping altogether. Uh, And that is
caused by receptors in the heart and brain stem basically
being too sluggish to respond two different amounts of oxygen
and CEO two, and it's just kind of lagging behind. Again,

(32:39):
think of it as a machine that's just slowing down
and those receptors can't pick up on it in times,
so it's it doesn't know how to tell you to
breathe basically like at a steady rate. Um, we should
say that there isn't evidence that that is physically painful again,
like awful for the healthy person in the room. Yeah, yeah,
for the family watching it, you think that the person

(33:02):
is suffering. There's not evidence that they are in fact suffering,
but it seems like it. And that from what I
understand with palliative care, UM, not only making the patient
comfortable is one of the priorities. Making the family comfortable
as a priority as well, because how you die has
a very lasting impact on the people who are there

(33:22):
to witness your death for family, so UM, explaining that
they're not suffering, uh is helpful, but not necessarily enough. Yeah.
And I think actually this podcast itself could help like
some people, because I don't think a lot of people
do this sort of research. When they go into a
hospital room in the last hours of a loved one's life. Yeah,

(33:44):
and they may not be told. They may even if
it is explained to it might not sink in what
they're being told because you know, seeing somebody gasping for
breath and then being told that they're not really suffering,
those two things might not jibe. Well, yeah, you're you're
instinct that's probably trying to help. Yeah, Like they can't
breathe clearly, let's get a nurse in here. And the
nurse is like, no, that's that's that's part of it. Yeah.

(34:07):
Another one that's very disconcerting. Another sign of active dying
is the death rattle. And uh, I did a I
guess it. Don't be dumb on death rattles. And basically
either you have fluid in the lungs or like you know,
when you clear your throat like I just did. That's
a normal ability you have until you start dying. You

(34:29):
can't clear your throat anymore. Those are your laryngeal muscles, right,
basically spasm NG what clearing your throat? No, the death rattle. No,
the death rattle is just breathing through the mire. It's
both it's it's either liquid or it's the muscle spasms. Yeah, Okay,
so did you find that that's painful, because I found

(34:51):
that it's it doesn't cause pain, it's just it sounds
terrible again to the people in the room exactly. And
this is uh, I don't think we pointed out this
is the egonal phase of death and it's Greek for
struggle and agony. Yeah, that's sort of just encapsulates it.
I think that's probably why they call it the active
phase of death now rather than agonal. Oh do they

(35:13):
don't even call it that anymore. I mean, I think
some people do, but I think the active and agonol
are the same one and the same. It's just you know,
they're in the agony phase, right or they're in the
active phase. Uh. Your muscles, aside from your vocal cords,
um might start convulsive and spasm ng. Um. You can

(35:33):
get all you know, herky jerky and two things that
wouldn't seem like you should be able to do in
your state, like um, card tricks. I don't know if
you could do cards shuffling card tricks from one hand
to the other, and Grandpa never could. Before I knew
we could get some humor in here somehow. Um what else? Uh, well,

(35:58):
let's see, your blood pressure is gonna up, your jaw
is gonna drop, you might end up in a really
weird rigid position. Um and uh you're I think we
said your extremities are going to be cold to the touch. Yeah. Actually,
the the death rattle as a result of the spasming
of your laryngeal muscles that can also produce um. What

(36:20):
was described in what I read as a barking sound.
Oh yeah, yeah, And I've never I didn't search that
out to see if that was recorded anywhere, but I'm
curious what that sounds like. I've heard everything from gurgling
like gurgle to it sounds like there's marbles in your throat. Uh, barking.
That's a new one. But it makes I think everybody

(36:41):
has their own signature death rattle, you know. But they
rule of thumb, apparently among hospice workers is once the
death rattle comes, it's a sign that they got about
forty eight hours or less left to live. Yeah, and
all of these are tells, really, and all of them.
And we'll talk about what happens after the body is
dead too, and that helps finding out, you know, in forensics,

(37:02):
I think we put it out plenty of times at
the time of death, depending on the various things that happen,
you know, when they find you. But all all of
these are almost like like markers on a clock. Yeah,
and if you're in hospice care, you know these things
like oh this is this means this? Well, there there
are signs and symptoms of the system shut down that

(37:23):
the person's body is going through, you know. Yeah. So, Um,
the senses apparently also are lost in a healthy person
or a person who has all five senses. Um, they're
lost in a certain order, and touch and hearing are
the last to go. And another that's kind of nice.

(37:43):
Another very important point that hospice workers make is never
ever talk about the patient like they're not there, because
they can hear you up until the end. Like hearing
is kept so long as the person could hear before
then there's not any damage from you know, during the
act dying period. Um, they can hear you until the
moment they die, and you need to be careful what

(38:08):
you say. Yeah, and I think that's a really nice
thing that the last things that you can experience are
the touch of a loved one or the voice of
a loved one. Needs to see him. You may not
even be able to respond to that, but you can
still hear that's true. I would definitely pick that over sight.
I'd rather hear someone's words as I pass rather than

(38:28):
having silence and just seeing their faces staring at me,
so long as the words aren't. Wait, one more thing,
I think it would be almost cruel to be able
to see and not here at the end. You know,
like he wants to see your family upset. You want
to hear feel them hold your hand and say everything's
gonna be right. So you so you raise a good

(38:51):
issue like there's if you have a dying family member,
especially if they're dying a frailty or they're just dying,
like they're in the dying process, so they're about to
enter the dying process. Um, you could do worse things
than to go online and educate yourself on how to
be around them. I think people don't intuitively know how
to be around a dying person, and there's certain things

(39:13):
that you should do, certain things you shouldn't do, like,
for example, um, they say that you should talk to
the person, not the condition, So don't treat them like
they're frail or dying, like treat them like they're your
old friend who they are. Um, it's extremely important to
make sure that they're in a peaceful, calm environment. Um. So,

(39:33):
like maybe yelling at somebody over the will is a
really bad idea. They seem like no brainers. But I
guess some people need to be told this stuff. Yeah,
but I mean think about it, like it can put
you on edge being around a dying person, like do
you mention the fact that they're gonna die or do
you you know? I mean like do you dance around
it if they make a joke or something like can

(39:53):
you laugh or do you laugh too hard? Do you
not laugh enough? Like there's I think it's not necessarily
like yeah, I think it's it's just put you on edge.
Not everyone is as sensitive to So you're going to
add one. Don't bring your laptop in there and watch
reruns of the Office. No, yeah, are you speaking from experience?
I'm just going to add that. Okay, that's all my list. Okay,

(40:16):
get off your cell phone. Yeah, pay attention to them. Sure, yeah,
I mean that's what you're there for. That, as hospice
workers put it, you're giving them a very heartfelt gift
by being there with them while they're dying and maybe
receiving a gift, you know, and many religions and cultures,
it's very uh much an honor to be a part

(40:36):
of this whole thing. And even if you're not religious,
that you could just feel that way spiritually is a
human you know. Okay, uh, well, let's pause here because Chuck,
it's time for a message break and we're back. Okay,

(41:10):
So are we dead yet? Are we at that point? Yeah?
The the person has passed. It just sounded very cheery.
Yeah yeah, yeah, Well, I mean like we've rattled off
some pretty what seems like suffering, but now the suffering
is over. If there was any other person is dead.
So once you immediately immediately after you die, your pupils

(41:32):
are going to dilate because the muscles controlling the iris
or you know, gonna have their final rest. So your
pupils are going to dilate. And then have you heard
of the terminal tier or the lachrima mortis? No, this
is a usually in the right eye, and there's no
real explanation for it, but um, it is a final

(41:54):
tier that you shed. Wow, And um it doesn't always
happen right after you die, although it can. They did
a study in the early nineties in New Zealand and
out of a hundred deaths, fourteen of them right at
the time of death had the lacrymamortists here and uh
thirteen of them in the final ten hours. And they
say uh to to look out for that if you're

(42:17):
the family, because it can be a sign. And also
they try to talk you into the fact that it's
a comforting thing to see that tier being shed. Yeah.
And since we're on eyes, you know the old thing
where you close someone's eyes after they die, Oh yeah,
or you put silver dollars on if it's it's the
old West. Um. I guess people do that too. So

(42:39):
you're not having someone a dead body staring at you, right,
because if they're looking dead forward, straight forward there like
following you all through out there. Yeah, and it's definitely
a movie trope. But if you don't close the eyes.
And I never knew this um something called t a
c h E. Noir. I don't know if it's tash
or taste more as a black a dark reddish brown

(43:02):
strip that forms horizontally over your eyeball. And I guess
it's just you know, your eyeballs dry out and has
the air. So if you don't close your eyes, and
I looked it up, you're gonna see this weird horizontal
stripe across your eye. There's a plus the effect that
has in the living, the difference between seeing a dead
body with their eyes closed and a dead body with
their eyes open, And it's just it's like a galaxy

(43:24):
between the two as far as discomfort goes. Yeah, somebody
should edit together the like every time that's ever been
done in a movie. Yeah, there like super fast alright,
So that's all I got on the eyes. Um, so Chuck,
I want to alarm you right now. Boy, you have
living in your guts right now, the very organisms that

(43:48):
are going to decompose your body when you die, they're
just sitting around waiting, waiting for action, waiting for the
signal yep um. When you die, there's a lot of
stuff that's still alive, that's still going on even though
your brain dead, whole brain, higher, brain, heart dead, your
heart stopped dead. That's another definition of death. I don't

(44:10):
know if we mentioned heart. Your heart is not beating anymore.
You're dead, yes, Um, there's no bringing you back. You've
been in your heart hasn't your brain hasn't had oxygen
for a while. You died of hypothermia, uh, and they
warmed you up. So now you're officially dead. You're gone, right,
But there's still a lot of stuff. Remember the Poop

(44:31):
Shake episode we can forget, we talked about the microbio
and we have this whole other, like part of our
life are living organism that's still around, that's still operating,
and a lot of stuff living within us, including part
of our microbiome. They're still carrying on processes like apparently
you can harvest skin cells for twenty four hours and

(44:52):
and there's still alive. Just use them, yeah, for all
sorts of stuff. Yeah, you can harvest them. And then
of course inside your intestines there's a little tiny organisms
that are still living and are gonna help do the
work that comes next, starting a couple of days after death.
Like if you just fell over in the woods and
no one was around. I always loved the setting, right, um,

(45:14):
and you're just left there. Within about three days, these
organisms of micro flora is going to go to work
on you, starting in your intestines. Yeah, and this is
after the various mortises correct, Yes, which I guess we
should kind of go over it. But I would recommend everybody,
um go listen to what causes rigor mortis? Yeah, for sure,

(45:36):
it's on the website. You can go to stuff you
should know dot com, slash podcasts, uh slash what hyphen
causes hyphen rigor hyphen mortis. Um, we'll just run through
the mortis is real quick. Then um, algor mortis, or
the death chill, that's the first first thing that's gonna happen.
That's where your body starts dropping in temperature about a

(45:58):
degree and a half fahrenheit per hour, until you are
just like a nice red wine at room temperature. Yeah,
actually that's not quite true. Red wines like sixty four
degrees from you. I guess it dep into what kind
of room you're in. Yeah, if you're in a sixty
four degree it's perfect, all right. What else? Well, after
alger mortis, um, you get rigor mortis a couple of

(46:18):
hours after death where the body um settles into a
stiff state. Uh. And that lasts for what like twenty
four hours? I don't remember. We talked about it. Uh yeah, yeah,
I think so. Um, And then between those you have
live remortis or subdulation. That's where like all the blood
coagulates at the Yeah, basically that your red blood cells

(46:41):
are pretty heavy and they just sink and Um it's
about twenty minutes to three hours after death is when
you're going to be in live remortis, and then after
that is rigor. That's right, Okay, so not back to
putrification right, Well, that's the best thing to talk about. Yeah,
that's that's basically like cure. These organisms going to work

(47:01):
breaking down your body, and they do it pretty quick. Um.
The pancreas apparently has so many in there that it
just itself eats itself. The pancreas consumes itself. It's pretty efficient. Um,
your other organs are gonna eventually eventually be consumed in
turned into liquid. You're liquefied from the inside out. Yeah,
you're gonna turn colors in this order green than purple,

(47:25):
than black, which is just like a like a black eye,
I guess, yeah, in that the same stage. Yeah, except
it never fully heals explodes. Um you uh, within a
couple of weeks, you're going to be liquid inside. Uh.
The organisms that are eating you produce a gas as

(47:46):
a byproduct from their consumption. So you're going to be bloated.
Your tongue is going to stick out, it's gonna turn
dark to your tongue. Yeah, and that gas really stinks.
Your eyes are going to protrude. Yeah. Um. There's something
called purge fluid that is a putrid, reddish brown fluid
that can be expelled through just everywhere you've got an opening. Right,

(48:08):
you can come out of your mouth, your nose, your vagina. Uh,
it can be mixed with feces and come out of
your rectum. Another. Um, there's something else I can come
out of your vagina too. Yeah, this is maybe the
worst thing I've ever heard. I just I had no idea. Yeah,
I had no idea. You know, I know all about
death and all that, and it's like interests me. I

(48:29):
had never heard of this before. I don't even want
to talk about it. You don't either. Maybe we should
type it into the computer and make the computer say it.
Do we have that ability? Oh wow, that's pretty good, Chuck.
That's a good computer impression. So wait, that's what you
do when you don't want to say something yourself. You
pretend you're a computer. Yeah, that Emily and I. Most

(48:51):
of our fights are like that. Really, Yeah, it's pretty cute.
I go into a war games mode. What was it again, computer? Uh?
Cof coffin birth. So basically those gases that, um, this
is a real thing. We're not making this up. Yeah,
but post mortal fetal extrusion is another name for it.
So the gases that build up in the body before

(49:14):
the body ruptures um, which comes a little later, can
become so pressurized that a pregnant woman who has died
with the fet is still in utero can actually the
gases can push the fetus out of the vagina um,
which is coffin birth. Yeah. And this doesn't happen much anymore, thankfully,

(49:36):
because we take care of dead bodies pretty quickly. Um.
Although they did find evidence of it in a case
in two thousand eight where this woman was found like
in the woods, but um, it was described a lot
in like six to eighteenth century medical literature. Oh you know,
it just drove them crazy. To she was obviously alive
for weeks afterward. Yeah, And archaeologist apparently to or are

(50:01):
have to rethink sometimes when they find because sometimes you
would die during childbirth. But the um they would buried
the the baby with the mother, and so you would
find the bones like cradling each other almost. But then
they go back, they've had to go back and look
at somewhere they find the you know, between the legs,
the bones of the baby, and they think that might

(50:21):
be the case, like of a coffin birth. So there's
the worst thing in the world. Yeah, Um, there's probably
death metal band with that name. If there's not, there
is now. Um. So the gases ultimately, eventually, once they start,
once they really get down to business, and they're no
longer just what's the call where they're the fluids coming
out a little orifices here, they're purge fluid. Okay. So

(50:43):
once it's like enough with the purge fluid, the we're
just gonna tear the sucker open. Your body ultimately ruptures. Yeah,
and this is you know, your skin is already blistered
at this point. Um, your hair, nails, and teeth have
fallen out. They don't keep growing. No, it's your skin
receding from drawing out from desiccating. So pass that around

(51:04):
in school kids. When someone says that your fingernails keep
going after death, you set him straight. Tell him Josh saying,
oh god, I just realized there's kids listening to this. Yeah. Um.
And then the old d gloving, which we've talked about before.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that, remember that? Yeah? Where
the that can happen to you? If you drive at
ten and two and you have an air bag, the

(51:27):
gases that expand the air bag out of your steering
wheel are very hot. And if you're not driving at
nine and three and you have your hands at like
ten and two or something like, you're going to be
de gloved alive. Yeah, but your skin is just burned
right off your hands, or it's burned and separated and
then eventually comes off. So ten and two is not

(51:49):
how you should drive it on. Really, That's what I've learned. Yeah.
I drive it either just a straight up six o'clock
with one hand or a nooner, just a straight up
noon nude. I rarely have two hands on the wheel.
You don't drive with like your knees, with your hands
behind your head relaxing occasionally if i'm you know, relaxing, Yeah,
we're playing the guitar or something. Yeah, de gloving is

(52:14):
I know we talked about this in the probably rigor mortis.
But that's when your body farms. Maybe yeah, that's when
basically your skin is removed, still attached to things like
fingernails and things like that. And it's they call it
de gloving for a reason. I don't think we need
to explain it makes perfect sense. Or de socking sometimes,

(52:34):
you know, can happen to your feet. And I hadn't
heard of that one. Did you just make that up? Well,
they said gloves or socks if it's your feet, But
I did make up the socking. Well, I don't have
to use that from now on. That might be a
new thing. Um. So the body once it, once it ruptures,
your organs are already liquid um and all that's left

(52:56):
is a skeleton, which will eventually turn to dust too.
Can we be done? No, wait, we can't be done,
because we do need to talk a little bit about
UM assisted suicide. Yeah, I just eat that up for you.
You should. Um, that's quite a controversial subject, like we said, um,
I don't know if I said or not, Like this

(53:17):
has just been such a huge whirlwind of input of
information in my head in the last like thirty six
hours studying for this UM that I don't know what
I've said yet or not, or what we talked about
in another podcast, but so we talked about dying of
frailty of old age and that it's increasing. Supposedly five
out of ten people in the United States will die

(53:39):
in the intensive care unit. And I saw this Ted
talk from Newcastle, Australia with this guy I can't remember
what his name is, but it's it's about dying. I
think it's called it can we talk about dying or something,
And his point was, you're going to die in the
I see you, whether you want to or not, if
you die of a degenera, nrative disease or frailty, unless

(54:03):
you say you don't want to die there, because the
way medical science is currently set up, you are going
to be treated most of the time up until a
bitter end with life saving measures, and you're going to
die in the i c U with tubes hooked up
and things beeping, and like other people having crash carts

(54:25):
taken in and out of their room and people making
a big rucus up until the point you die, unless
they give you palliative care or or you say I
don't want to be sustained like that. I don't want
to go to the i c U. And this point was,
if half of Americans are going to die in the
i c U, you have to assume that maybe not

(54:45):
all of them would want to die in the i
c U. And therefore they need to think of things
like I wanted an advanced directive, a living will, I
want a living power of attorney to somebody to say no, no,
do not put them on a ventilator, do not put
them on feeding tubes. Like they don't want that. They
just want to die, or they want to go to hospice.
They want to go back home. That's another big one,

(55:08):
like they don't let you go back home, especially if
you can't speak for yourself. Like to medical science these days,
that's crazy. You don't leave the hospital when you know
you're dying. You stay in the hospital and and we
keep doing stuff until you die. That's not the way
it jobs with a lot of people. But if you
don't stop and think about it and then write it

(55:29):
down or tell somebody who can speak for you, that's
you're not going to go home, you're not going to
get to hospice. You have to do this ahead of time.
And part of that that's kind of come out of
this idea is okay, Well, if we have autonomy to
say I don't want you to intibate me, why don't
we have the autonomy to say, I want you to
give me some stuff that's going to painlessly end by life,

(55:52):
because it's either that or facing a tremendous amount of
pain and suffering through this degenerative disease. Basically saying I'm Eddie,
I am ready, it is my life. It's like the
Richard Dryfist movie from the eighties. Uh, covertis whose life
is anyway? I think I have no idea what you're
talking about. Yeah, I think so. It was a movie

(56:13):
about assisted suicide and do you should you have the
right to be able to You know, it's a hot
button issue for sure, but apparently most Americans or the
majority of Americans actually support it until you start using
a word like suicide. Right when you pull them and
say do you are you in favor of doctors helping
someone painlessly in their life or something at the end

(56:35):
of life? They yeah, And then they're like, okay, so
you're in favorite physician assisted suicide? No? No, no, h um,
what's that word? You know? And and the doctors who
are in favor of youuthan Asia is another term for it. Um, say,
look at palliative care, it's like half of a step
away from physician assisted suicide. Like you're keeping somebody if

(56:58):
they requested and knockdown on morphine of the rest of
their life so they're never gonna regain consciousness. Um. There's
this you you dug up this one article by a
British physician who argues that, um, that agonal um gasping reflex. Apparently,
when part of the apnea is that your body has

(57:18):
a reflex where you gasp for air and it's really
disconcerting to family members. Even though they don't think that
you're suffering, it looks like you're suffering. And this doctor argued, well,
we have drugs that can block this response so that
the person can't gasp for air, and what it's going
to cost them their last couple of breaths. But these
last couple of breaths make it appear like they're suffering,

(57:40):
and the family remembers that their kids suffered. Um, so
why wouldn't we do that? And there's this conversation that's
taking place more and more and more that ultimately it's
kind of like, who is somebody to say that somebody
can't choose to end their own life painlessly through the
use of like drugs or like Hunter Thompson didn't. Well,

(58:02):
I mean that's another way to go, and you anybody
can do that, sure, but there are some people out
there who don't want to die violently. They want for
their family. Like that's the part that I was upset
about with that was his wife, like finding him and stuff. Yeah,
his wife and his son. And it was like, not
only that he did it in his own basement, which
I can understand doing it at home, but he left

(58:23):
quite a mess in his own basement for his family
to clean up. But if he had other options these days,
like doctor assisted suicide, he might not have had to
make a mess in his basement for his families. Yeah,
and chuck, uh, we know that Hunter Thompson is far
from the only person to make his own exit his
own way. Another very famous person, uh, Sigmund Freud did too.

(58:46):
Huh oh yeah, yeah, you know that assisted suicide. Yeah, literally,
physician assisted suicide. He was um diagnosed with cancer of
the palette because he smoked tons of cigars, which were
some times just a cigar and uh. For sixteen years
he lived with that diagnosis and finally, towards the end,

(59:06):
he asked his surgeon, his physician, go ahead and hit
me up with I think five grams of morphine, like
just a ton of morphine. And he died three hours
after the injection of it, but which was more than
his usual two grams of morphine right or cocaine he
loved cocaine um, but he had um developed what was
called todden angst totin angst as German, which is a

(59:30):
dread of death. So and so he lived with that
for sixteen years. But he finally he decided along the way,
like I fear this, but I'm going to take it
into my own hands. Physician assisted suicide. And there's definitely
more than one side to this coin. There's a lot
of people. There's very strong opinions on either side. But

(59:50):
I think it's a at the very least, even if
you remove a motion from it's an extremely interesting conversation
and that it reveals so much about our attitudes toward
death total and autonomy, and like who's who has the
right to decide whether they're going to die or who
has the right to tell somebody that they can't do that.
Whose life is it anyway, Richard Dreyfuss, Uh, and then

(01:00:11):
chuck one. One other thing that we want to hit
on is um regret. Yeah. I actually saw this a
few weeks ago, just by chance, and then you sent
it to me. Um. I think it was in England
hospice nurse spent a lot of time researching life regrets
over the course of a certain amount of time and
came up with the five most common life regrets. And uh,

(01:00:36):
I think this is like a good way to end it,
you know. Number one, I wish I had the courage
to live a life true to myself and not the
life others expected of me. That was the number one regret.
Number two was I wish I didn't work so hard.
That doesn't surprise me at all. Number three I wish
I had the courage to express my feelings. Number four

(01:00:57):
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
It's very sad. Had one and I wish I'd let
myself be happier. There's number five. Yeah, like that. She
was saying that they didn't realize towards until the end
of their life that happiness is a choice that you make.
It's not something that happens to you. It's something you
go search out. It's a state of mind that you
strive for and to figure that out like at the

(01:01:20):
end that that's a regret. Yeah, so call to action people, Yeah, really,
like you think about the stuff. You don't have to
wish these things on your deathbed if you start doing
something about it. Now, dying, Chuck, you know what we
might have just done. We might have just finished the
death of the Death Suite. I bet there's something else. Yeah,

(01:01:40):
only time can tell. But I don't know how much
more aspects of death we can cover. And I'll tell
you what. I'm gonna put all of them together in
a blog post the Death Suite, so everybody can go
listen to all things death via stuff you should know.
In the meantime, if you want to look up more
about dying, just type dying into the search bar. How

(01:02:02):
stuff works. I think it has its own channel. Um,
there's so much to it. Uh. And since I said
search bar, it's time for a listener mail. This is
a nice one. Um. We don't normally do shout outs,
but this was a nice one, and I thought, what
better way to end such a depressing show. Uh. Hey guys,
and Jerry loved the podcast. Josh, I have to thank

(01:02:22):
you for teaching my fiance, Danny and me about the
flashlight trick to see spiderizer. Yeah. I still haven't done it, man,
I never think about it at night. Jerry, you said
you tried it right and it worked. Yeah, okay, I
need to do it. I need to set a reminder.
And my my response to people who have been like,
can you can you explain it again? Practice That's my explanation.
Just practice, Just try it from a different angle. Just practice.

(01:02:44):
It's a real thing. It's not a trick. It is
completely amazing. And this is from Peache by the way. Uh.
And it's wonderful and frightening at the same time. But
the problem now is that whenever we walk our dogs
at night, I just can't have my normal fiance. I
have this dude with the flashlight stuck to his forehead
stopping at every field to let me know just how
many spiders are dogs are stepping on and how we

(01:03:05):
are always surrounded. Thanks for the show, and now for
a shameless request. I know you don't often give shout outs,
but it would be the most amazing thing ever, if
you could give a shout out to Danny on the
podcast The Airs sometime before our wedding on oct let
him know that I love him more than anything, and
then I'm excited to share my life with him, even

(01:03:25):
if he does have a flashlight stuff to his forehead,
with the rest of our lives walking our dogs together.
I know this is totally blown away. And I would
even let him listen to that podcast first. So thanks
to Jerry. Thanks guys. That is from Peachy in Thousand Oaks, California.
I think Peachy just expressed it very nicely. Yeah, so Danny, Peachy, congratulations, Uh,

(01:03:49):
best of luck, best witches from us. I told her
listen up for it on that Dying podcast and he
thought that was kind of funny, and it's like great, Yeah,
and Danny, um, maybe put down with five slight once
in a while, yeah, wife, Uh and Peg, don't use
the word fiance so much. Okay, that's a life lesson
from Chuck right there. No would likes to hear that. Um.

(01:04:11):
If you want to see if you can talk Chuck
into a shout out, take your best shot. You can
tweet to us at s y S k podcast. You
can talk to him directly on Facebook dot com slash
Stuff you Should Know. That's where he spend all of
this time. UM. You can send us an email to
Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and you

(01:04:32):
can join us at our website, our very own website.
It's called Stuff you Should Know dot com. Stuff you
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