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Part 1. The Symptoms of Dying.

You and I, one day we’ll die from the same thing. We’ll call it different names: cancer, diabetes, heart failure, stroke.

One organ will fail, then another. Or maybe all at once. We’ll become more similar to each other than to people who continue living with your original diagnosis or mine.

Dying has its own biology and symptoms. It’s a diagnosis in itself. While the weeks and days leading up to death can vary from person to person, the hours before death are similar across the vast majority of human afflictions.

Some symptoms, like the death rattle, air hunger and terminal agitation, appear agonizing, but aren’t usually uncomfortable for the dying person. They are well-treated with medications. With hospice availability increasing worldwide, it is rare to die in pain.

While few of us will experience all the symptoms of dying, most of us will have at least one, if not more. This is what to expect.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/20/well/live/the-symptoms-of-dying.html?action=click&contentCollection=Well&module=RelatedCoverage&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article

Part 2. The Gentler Symptoms of Dying

While some of the symptoms of dying, like the death rattle, air hunger and terminal agitation, can cause alarm in witnesses, other symptoms are more gentle.

The human body’s most compassionate gift is the interdependence of its parts. As organs in the torso fail, the brain likewise shuts down. With the exception of the minority of people who suffer sudden death, the vast majority of us experience a slumberous slippage from life. We may be able to sense people at the bedside on a spiritual level, but we are not fully awake in the moments, and often hours, before we die.

Every major organ in the body — heart, lungs, liver, kidneys — has the capacity to shut off the brain. It’s a biological veto system.

When the heart stops pumping, blood pressure drops throughout the body. Like electricity on a city block, service goes out everywhere, including the brain.

When the liver or kidneys fail, toxic electrolytes and metabolites build up in the body and cloud awareness.

Failing lungs decrease oxygen and increase carbon dioxide in the blood, both of which slow cognitive function.

The mysterious exception is “terminal lucidity,” a term coined by the biologist Michael Nahm in 2009 to describe the brief state of clarity and energy that sometimes precedes death.

More: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/well/live/the-gentler-symptoms-of-dying.html?action=click&contentCollection=Well&module=RelatedCoverage&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article

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