The Odor Of The Dying
Once you are hit with the scent of the actively dying, you’ll never forget it. I’ve tried to come up with some comparison, to give you an idea of the stench. I’ve decided that the best description is the nauseating combination of hospital antiseptic blended with putrid festering infection.
Prior to the actively dying stage, I did not notice any odors coming from my mom nor sister. Once informed that they were dying, with only hours or day/days left to live, that changed. During the first few hours, I barely perceived a faint breath odor. As the hours passed, the stench started to cling to their persons. As the hours waned, and I moved back and forth from the waiting room to their beds, the smell became more pronounced.
I Kept The Comments To Myself Out of Respect
The stink quickly became repulsive. It started to cling to me. It reminded me of going to nightclubs where others cigarette smoke would cling to your clothes the next morning. Or how the stench of artificial fog from concerts would remain in your hair until you washed it away. Even my hands would reek of this curious putrid smell of my dying family members. Even after washing, I could still smell it. I never mentioned it though, until I let it slip to my brother-in-law. He told me a nurse had said it was due to the body shutting down. Infection takes over.
Stench Permeates The Rooms
Quickly, the smell overpowered my dying sisters’ room. Hers was an agonizing death, taking six days for her frail body to slowly starve to death. She had a rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s, called Benson’s Syndrome. Triggered by mom’s surprise stroke, my sister declined rapidly. She refused to eat or drink, sometimes becoming violent. Her dehydration led to infections, kidney failure, self-starvation and death. As she lay dying, unconscious from medications to ease her pains of death, her body emitted the queasy, noxious smells that filled her room. As soon as you entered her room there was no mistaking it. Once you moved closer to her face the more pungent it became. One would tolerate it though, because of the sadness of it all.
Mom’s death was swifter. Once the ventilator was removed, she attempted to breathe on her own for an hour. Then the gasping, the struggling for air, followed by the administering of ‘comfort care,’ drugs to help her die with minimal pain or discomfort. She lived for 24 hours. During this time family and friends rotated visits. A nurse told me mom was ‘Popular. She has more visitors than anyone. ‘ I was at disbelief. She went on to tell me that mom has had a constant stream of visitors and more flowers than anyone on the ward. During these in and out visits that’s when I first noticed the curious smell. It definitely was not as prevalent with mom as it was with my sister. But it was there, on her breath, on her hair. Later, when it was my sisters turn to die, I recognized it for what it was, the smell of the dying.
Long after I left the hospital, even days after their deaths, I could still smell that, dare I say, disgusting odor. I was using hand sanitizer; the scent was still there. Even after shampooing, still it clung. For me it took at least 5 days to rid myself of the scentof death.
Rich and Strange! 