We're all scared of death but I'm somewhat of an extreme case.
Death terrifies me, it's on my mind an unhealthy amount.
So after years of anxiety, it's time for a new approach.
Over the next few weeks, I'm getting up close to death
to find out how we can come to terms with what's waiting for us all.
When you finally have the knowledge this is how you'll die.
What I could see was a tunnel of white light.
This week I want to find out if prepping for the end of your life
can help you face it with less fear.
Any of us could die at any point, you got to sort of bear that in mind.
So, it's time to plan my own death.
Today I'm meeting Aly Dickinson.
She's a death doula, which means she has the unusual job of keeping people company as they die.
Hello. – Hi.
And she's going to help me with my very own death plan.
She's very obese.
That's fine.
I shouldn't fat-shame her, should I?
So you've come here today to start doing your advance planning for end of life.
Yes.
So, what you'd like and what you wouldn't like for end of life?
OK, I just wanted to explain how we approach advance planning for end of life
and I've just got this diagram here.
So, we've just split it down to what is it that you want
who would you like to speak for you if you can't speak for yourself?
And then, what do you want to happen after you die?
Should we talk about funerals a bit? – OK.
Cremation or burial?
I think I'd be buried.
I think maybe my idea of the perfect funeral comes from like American films,
where people are standing around and they're wearing black
and there are trees … one of those. – OK.
Have you thought about your preferred place of death?
Dying in a hospital or not dying in a hospital?
It seems like the kind of place you should die.
I think, basically what the anxiety for me is,
I don't like dead bodies and so anything that puts my dead body in a situation
that should be normal, makes me feel uncomfortable.
So, being dead in my bed, the thought of a dead body in my house,
even if it was me, is just really icky to me. – Yeah.
In here, it talks about some of the circumstances
where you may want to refuse treatments.
So, if you have an imminently life-threatening illness,
a disease of the nervous system like motor neurone disease, or Parkinson's disease …
Are you OK? – Yeah.
No, I am. I actually am. I'm fine.
This is just quite a lot of stuff to think about.
That's why doing this is so good.
That if you've got everything written down,
somebody's got a script to follow.
They know what you want.
We can carry on talking. – OK, that would be nice.
Because I don't want to leave you in a space that is …
I am fine, honestly. – OK.
I'm just staring at you like this:
I'm OK, I'm not dying, don't worry.
Right, so this doula pack, I'm coming in, is actually all ready to go
because I could be called any time.
Because I got somebody who is just about to die
and the family want me to be with her
and then wash and dress her
after she's died.
So, a towel, and quite often I would have a dark coloured towel,
because it doesn't show anything nasty, stains, if the family is around.
Some pads for the bed to keep the bed dry.
A sheet to wrap the person in.
A silk scarf I put over the sheet.
The woman I'm going to be with, she loves peacock feathers.
A book …
Some oat cakes for me, if I get hungry …
A sage stick, it just cleans energy.
My iPad …
It's such a mixture of like, spiritual and practical.
It's all coming out randomly. – No, it's great.
It's kind of like, beautiful sheets and lighting and readings and
then like a huge extension pack ...
It sound like, it can be quite a calm atmosphere.
Is it normally calm?
Yeah, it really is very lovely. Most of the time.
Lovely? – Yeah.
It really is lovely.
Yeah, very peaceful.
All the small things and the day-to-day and the trivia
just melts away.
When when you do get back out into the real world,
how do you re-adjust?
Some of us doulas, they talk about going to the sea, they talk about nature,
they talk about meditation.
I'm much less cerebral than that, so I'm chocolate and boxsets
sort of person and I just go into another bubble of chocolate and box sets
for a couple of days and that seems to help with the readjustment.
But I know other people do things that are far more healthy.
And outdoory.
How many people have you accompanied so far?
Probably 50.
Like, what kind of wisdom can you get from them?
I haven't heard anybody say anything incredibly wise or wonderful
that I've taken away as their final words.
Maybe that's to come but you just learn about somebody's life,
the life they've lived and that all of us have got a story.
Goodbye cat.
How come you park up here?
Because I'm such a rubbish driver.
Good job I don't have any anxiety over car accidents or anything.
I'm a very safe driver, I promise you.
So, we are off to a death cafe, that's your next treat.
Would you like to die in a town or in the countryside?
I'm just continuing your advance plan.
Aly runs the Exeter death cafe.
Hello darling, we are here.
The aim is to make chatting about death normal for all of us
no matter how close we are to it.
So what we normally do is just, we just set up …
The death plan stuff made me realise that these are things
you actually have to think about because if you don't,
something's going to happen regardless and it may not be the thing that you want.
And so, I'm definitely getting into the mindset of death
as something to think about, death as something to plan for
and death as something to be open to.
How many cafes have you been to?
Half a dozen.
To talk about it, I think is a good thing, you know?
It's not the easiest thing to do, but …
I wouldn't say it was Marmite, you got to get into it and understand it's not just about death.
It's all about the whole landscape around it.
How's it going?
I didn't know about what this was until yesterday, I saw it on Facebook, advertised.
And I was like, that's the sort of thing that I've been looking for.
Because I've been quite seriously ill for the last ten years,
with a long-term condition and
had some quite close brushes with death.
Especially, last year. I had an operation,
then I had to have emergency surgery and I was hallucinating
but I definitely felt like I experienced death
at least four or five times.
What's it like?
Scary.
When they got my wife in, so she was like holding my hand,
it sort of like, it almost got to the end of a conveyor belt,
so I couldn't hold on anymore, it's just sort of going over
and then just went into a sort of ... kind of like a multicoloured darkness.
I don't that doesn't make any sense, but that's the only way I can describe it.
It's almost like,
there's a conveyor belt and my body just got taken off somewhere
and my soul just went into nothingness.
Are you alright?
It sounds horrible.
This is a funny thing to say, but do you remember that experience with fondness now?
No. – You don't?
No, it's quite a traumatic kind of issue for me.
It's still within you and it's frightening …
It's a lot to have in your head.
Does that not freak you two out?
Sorry, you're just … that's sort of speaking to my … the worst fears that I have.
Very intense.
You seem fine.
This doesn't bother me at all.
Why?
It's just like I said earlier, to me death is just like, another part of the adventure.
I've got somewhere to go.
You don't have much choice of what you're doing at that point in your life,
when you're helpless
and facing oblivion.
Aly is here!
Aly please help us!
If you want to swap tables, please feel free to do that.
I might do that.
What brings you here?
I'm terminally ill, so I've got, I don't know, six or nine months left to live, something like that.
I had my birthday in June, pretty sure I won't see the next one.
What birthday was it?
That was my 52nd.
I got diagnosed two years ago.
Diagnosed with?
You may regret asking what type of cancer.
Go on. – Anal.
Oh gosh.
When people ask, what sort of cancer is it again?
Are you sure you want to know?
Anal cancer.
What does it feel like, knowing you're going to die?
It didn't take long to sort of accustom to.
The worst thing is giving up on plans for the future, I think.
I'd always dreamed of one day,
living in a little remote cottage in the country.
Get another few other dogs, cats, hens.
That's not going to happen.
It's odd but it's not as bad as you might think.
Do you have ideas of how you want to actually die?
Like what you want to be happening and that bit …
Yeah, sort of.
I may end up in a hospice but I'm probably going to make sure
I've got a little stash of pill somewhere, mainly
just so I know I've got some control over it,
I'll probably will never use them
but just knowing that I have, it's that little bit of, I've got some control
over this if it comes to it.
I've not been through the whole 'shit, I'm going to die' thing …
I think that's why it's so good to have things like the death cafe,
because it sort of teaches everybody to sort of think about the inevitable.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I've become more scared of death every time I come closer to it,
which is natural, I guess
but, at the same time, I don't want to be living my life in fear.
I thought it would really help coming here,
and I think it really has.
How have you found it?
Yeah, I think it sort of makes you want to go out and have an ice cream.
People wanted to just quickly share
about how they found this evening?
I really enjoyed it.
Yeah, what he said.
There's something about death that feels
like a very lonely thing and I think coming together with loads of people to talk about it,
takes that aspect out of it,
at least for the evening.
Death anxiety was getting better
when I was hanging out with Aly and then it sort of fell off a cliff
or a conveyor belt, if you will
when I spoke to Rufus.
That didn't really help, I would love to say that my death anxiety
have been cured by this
but that really freaked me out.
So, no, death anxiety went down 20% and is now back up.
15%, so I'm 5% better than I was yesterday.
Thanks for watching another episode.
We got the news that Jeff died about a month after we filmed with him.
It was a pleasure to meet him
and we're really grateful that he took part in the series.
Next week, we're talking about near-death experiences.
As the train started pulling out, I just thought this is it, I'm going to die.
What followed changed David's life forever.
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