61 Things Patients Finally Admitted When They Knew There Was Little Time Left

Fist patient from whom I ever took a history told me he had worked as a pilot. When I asked why type of plane he candidly talked about flying narcotics for Colombian d**g cartels/lords in the 80. Wasn't a deathbed confession, he was a random inpatient I was assigned to interview, but it was a hell of a story.

I supported a gentleman that said he had been shot at in WW2. He was stationed out in France and his plane had been shot down.
Most of the staff thought he was just telling fanciful stories, but I didn’t understand why they thought that.

When he had reached the end of life, and was actively dying his body started to push out all the shrapnel that had been lodged inside him. He had quite large bits of metal poking out from his skin all over his lower back and shoulders. Maybe not a confession, but a validation.

Not really a confession but horrifying truth. I was working on a geriatric ward in Germany.. An old man was having a delirium and reimagining all the horrible things of War mostly the things he committed. He sang Songs to one of our polish nurses how he had k**ler her husband and children and would now r**e her. Later boasting about how many people he had shot.

His family knew he had been at the Ostfront. But after the war you did not talk about things that happened there. So the wife and children were very disturbed by his stories. He died a few days later.

My grandma that I was the only one who was allowed to clean out her room when she passed.

It turns out that she had a lot of lesbian magazines as well as paraphernalia.

The poor woman was in the closet for almost 90 years.

“I’ve never cheated on my wife though.”

After he told me all the racketeering and violence he did.

My friend told me once that he k****d a man and dumped his body in a river. The man was a horrible person who r***d and beat a woman who my friend was close to. I don't have any details so I can't help the police close a cold missing person's case, but when a vicious monster goes missing, people just shrug and say he had it coming.

Whats wild is how these confessions swing from someone doing something awful just to survive to a old man terrified he used birth control once and god was gonna get him. Mine would probably just be the Blockbuster DVD I never returned in 2004.

One lady’s movement disorder was progressing, she was weakening so much she could hardly speak. When her friend visited, she wrote on the whiteboard given to her “Kyle k****d four women”. Her friend said that Kyle was her husband who has since died. I wasn’t able to stick around for much longer but wow.

Critical care doc here. Never heard a bedside confession, but I’ve had dozens of patients tell me “I’m not going to make it” or words to that effect when we are admitting them to the ICU. They are always right. .

My grandmother smiled and looked into the corner where no one was and said “it’s so good to see you, I’ve been waiting” smiled some more fell into a coma and died within 24 hrs.

Edit: I don’t work in healthcare. This is just an example of odd things I’ve witnessed with people passing. No d***h rattle like an uncle of mine. That was a whole other experience. Anyone who works or cares for people in their last days showing them dignity and respect, all power and respect to you!

Obligatory Not a Doctor. My great grandma had one of these. Just before her alzheimers took her, she told us all about her first husband, who was purged by Stalin, and the child with him that she lost during the famines in Ukraine during the late 30s.

Work in Dementia Care in activities/D***h Doula. At that stage everything's usually quiet. Sometimes the d***h rattle, a mouthed thank you, the fear of d***h in someone's eyes or face. Ive never really put much stock into d***h bed confessions. Lost 5 people last week.

I miss you Mont man, Flyin J, Sandman, and Pat Pat.thank you for allowing me to see you to the other side.

My maternal grandma shared a family secret that my grandpa’s sister stayed with them during the sister’s secret pregnancy. She gave the baby up for adoption. A few years later we found out that baby was adopted by my dad’s aunt and uncle. The deathbed confession was the secret baby. Who knew that would lead to my parents sharing a cousin.

My patient was imminently dying and told her husband the day before that she wracked up $60,000 in debt on 3 credit cards he never knew she had.

First pt I ever saw actively dying was fighting during care, and apparently had been generally agitated. As I passed her son outside of the room, her said something like "If you lived a bad life, I guess you're afraid to d*e". 25 yrs and I can still see that room, and the pt fighting.

I've had several that were the "the kid isn't yours" or "I had another family" type of confessions. With the wider spread of DNA and genealogy testing I do think it'll be a dying art to take those secrets to the grave.

My dad died in front of me and his cousin who was a preacher. At my dad’s funeral the cousin gave the service and said that at his end my dad asked Christ for forgiveness. My dad was an atheist his whole life and never did so. I was with him the whole time my dad’s cousin was. I went up to speak for my father and I corrected him in front of the family. He was livid but he lied. We spoke about it before he left town and I said to him that while we don’t believe in heaven he does and lying about something this serious is a good reason to be judged. We’ve not spoken sense.

A lady with Lewy body dementia admitted she was married before and her oldest son isn’t her husbands but he doesn’t know.

Turns out grandmas safety deposit box did have an old marriage certificate. And uncle and his kids don’t look like us.

Not a confession, but had a patient who had terminal brain cancer and 2 small kids (5 year old twins). She was recently divorced and her husband was not kind to her. Her biggest fear was that her kids would not remember her with love because they would be raised by their dad who said horrible things about her. Honestly there was nothing I could say to comfort her because her fear probably would come true. I didn’t know what to say so I said almost nothing. .

Man slit both arms and femoral arteries. Ended up dying shortly after arriving to the ER, from DIC.

His last words to me were, "it hurts".