Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - Why we shouldn't be afraid of death

Episode Date: May 21, 2024

We had a chat with Julie McFadden, a TikTok star and hospice nurse. She shared some amazing insights about normalising death and her experiences from 16 years working in palliative care. Such an eye-opening conversation   Julies Tik ok: @HospicenursejulieSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Hits with the Jono and Ben podcast. Thanks to Challenge, putting the service back into service stations. Julie McFadden, she's from the States, got a new book called Nothing to Fear and she joins us live from America. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Really nice to talk to you. Now you've, well, explain to people that don't know you because obviously you're massive on TikTok. You've got a book coming out as well and you've been working as a hospice nurse, but explain a bit about your story. Yeah. So I am a hospice nurse. I still do hospice nursing. I've been a nurse for 16 years. I started getting on social media about three years ago, very much on a whim to educate about death and dying and hospice and palliative care, all the things. And, you know, like four

days into it, a video of mine went viral. And then that was three years ago. So since three years, I've just sort of kept doing what I'm doing. I ended up getting a book deal. Now I have a book coming out and here I am today talking with you guys. It's been crazy. I imagine in your line of work every day would be a real leveler. Yeah. Well, you know, I was an ICU nurse before I was a hospice nurse, which is what made me passionate about becoming a hospice nurse. Everyone thinks my work must be depressing, but that's one of the reasons why I came to social media to explain to everybody that it's not really depressing. It's actually, if you're going to die which all of us are by the way um dying at home on hospice i know spoiler alert sorry guys good morning

but but truthfully truthfully uh the the death the kind of death that I see on hospice is sad. Yes, we all, there's grief there, but generally speaking, it's, dare I say, beautiful. Is there one common theme about people who you are treating or looking after as they near the end of life? Are they all saying something that's similar? Are they doing something that's similar? Yeah, I was just going to say, I mean, that's the main thing I hear from my patients is that they wish they would have appreciated the health and the body that they had appreciated when I could eat easily, or like when I felt hungry, or that I

could go for a run or go see my family, I could go do whatever. I wish I appreciated that more when it was happening because we take for granted our health. Every night I write on a gratitude list that I'm grateful for my health because it's so easy to forget that we are, most of us are walking around in a somewhat of a healthy body. So that's one thing. The second thing is working their life away. They wish they didn't work their life away. Then seeing friends and family doing the things that they want, they want to do, not waiting to do those things. That's really fascinating. We've got a TikTok star and hospice nurse, Julie McFadden with us. Her book is called Nothing to Fear as well. Do you, do you find that the grieving process could be better for people as well? Do you find that we could probably approach that in different ways?

Well, I think it's important to realize that grief is different for everybody and it lasts forever. It may change, but it does last forever. I think we all, generally speaking, want to feel good. And if we don't, I think we automatically think we're doing something wrong or something's not right. So with grief, it's like, I think getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, getting comfortable with realizing it's going to feel different, different days and sometimes not feel like anything, which could feel bad too, not feeling anything. Many of my families will feel relief after their loved one dies. And they're so ashamed to say that they feel relieved and then

they have guilt and shame for caring you know and carry that around so generally speaking i just think grief is complicated i think just being open about that that it's complicated is there you would have seen uh all sorts of people uh live out their days is there one person that you're like damn they did life perfectly? Yes. The ones that I'm like, wow, they did this right are the ones that are willing to openly talk about their fears about death and their joys in life. So it's not like people who died well or peacefully were just so accepting of it and were just so ready. It was like, they just had

the ability to openly say like, I'm afraid, or I don't want to, or I'm angry about this, to openly say that. And then when it was happening to be able to kind of shift and be flexible to the fact that it was, there is something about like the truth telling of it all, even when the truth is scary and sad, like I don't want to die. There is still something about that that made it that made it beautiful and that helped the family and the patient let go just a little bit more. And that that I have seen countless times, countless times. And it makes me want to be able to die like that if I can. Really fascinating. I don't know if this is too weird or grim to talk about,

but I have a friend who is a nurse who works in a serious illness situation. And she sees that when someone passes away in their presence, they always continue to talk to them because they, they reckon that they linger there for a little bit. Yeah. Well, first off, before someone actually has died, even if they're not responding to you, I always tell everybody to still talk to them

because we do think people can still hear at the end of life, even like right before they die. Can you help us with our radio show? It's been dying for a while now. Any chance? She's like, just find peace with it. Is that what we need to do? Just talk about it, folks.

Just talk about it. Okay, let's talk about it. What do you you think happens where do you think we go is there an afterlife well okay so this is just my belief you know i would never push this on anybody because i know a belief is just just a belief so i i personally think we do i mean and that has come from a life my life that I have lived. But also, being a hospice nurse has helped me think, yes, we do we go somewhere when when we die. And to me, personally, it's always good. I've never seen anyone go, quote, unquote, going somewhere bad or looking like they're, they're going somewhere bad. If anything, to me, it feels kind of like a birth. I don't know if you guys ever seen a baby being born, but when a baby is born to me, when I have seen it,

it feels like, whoa, almost magical. This new being is now here. And that is how it feels when I see people take their last breath. It's the same feeling. And I kind of feel like the baby is coming from somewhere that we once knew and that our loved ones are going back to that place. And we're going to go there someday too. You are the perfect person in this job because you're so positive and you make me feel at ease about it. So I can only imagine what you do for your patients. Oh, thank you.

Thank you. I really, really, really do love what I do. If you couldn't tell, I'm super passionate about it. The book is called Nothing to Fear. And I truly believe that it's nothing to fear. And it's normal to fear. And just because you fear it doesn't mean you can't talk about it. You can say that you can say that. And that's just as good as you saying, I'm not afraid, just as long as you say anything about it, I think it will help. I'm just worried. We've been talking to you for a long time now. I'm just worried about how many people have died while you've been talking to us. Are we taking up some valuable hospice time here? Julie, thank you so much for your time. The book seems incredible, helping people feel a lot better about what is a tricky conversation for a lot of us and a tricky time in a lot of people's lives. So thank you so much for your time and everyone go out and buy the book, Nothing to Fear. Thank you guys. Thank you so much.