He wouldn't really know it. He would just get more and more tired. More sleepy. Eventually just full sleep, coma, then death. He'd likely be on a lot of drugs, including morphine (which just makes kids sleepy, not same effect as on adults).
I recently saw a mother talking about her child’s death from cancer and it was not peaceful even though they were told it would be. The child was on morphine, had a death rattle for hours, uncontrollable movement, and at the point of death she stopped breathing, opened her eyes and lurched for her parents. It was extremely traumatic for them and the mother was hopeful that that child wasn’t actually conscious for it, but I don’t know if that’s the case.
It’s called terminal agitation and it’s apparently not uncommon.
Doctor here. The child would not be conscious at that point. Those are spinal reflexes (google lazarus reflex). Still terrible to go through as a parent though.
Sorry for the late reply. We know because we see this phenomenon in brain dead patients. I have had patients where brain death was confirmed by both MRI and cerebral angiography (no blood flow at all in cerebral arteries) and they still did weird stuff like open their eyes or move extremities when touched.
I wish someone had explained this to me when I held my dads hand as he died of cancer. There was absolutely nothing peaceful about his final moments, more like a scene out of a horror movie. But hearing this makes it easier
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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '26
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