Virtual Funeral Using Technology To Bring Everyone Together

This podcast does not provide medical advice. Please listen to the complete disclosure at the end of the recording. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Everyone Dies, the podcast where we talk about serious illness, dying, death, and bereavement.

I'm Marianne Matzo, a nurse practitioner, and I use my experience from working as a nurse for 44 years to help answer your questions about what happens at the end of life. And I'm Charlie Navarette, an actor in New York City, and here to ask the questions you may have while listening to our podcast. We are here because, well, in a word, preparation.

Plan in advance. You do not want to make end-of-life choices under pressure. The better prepared you are, the better you will deal with difficult decisions.

Make end-of-life decisions well before the end. So please relax, get yourself some tomato juice, maybe some celery. Oh, Charlie, you've already got all that out.

And thank you for spending the next hour with Charlie and me. In the first half, we have our recipe of the week where Charlie's going to be mixing, guess what, Bloody Marys. In the second half, we're going to talk about the new reality of virtual funerals.

And in our third half, we welcome back Claire Lucky, known as the grieving bitch on Instagram, who will be talking with us about the day, five months after her wedding day, she arrived home and her husband did not recognize her. So, Charlie, what are you mixing up there? Well, let's start from the beginning, shall we? Born on February 18, 1516, Mary was not the long-awaited son her parents, Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, had hoped for. But she survived infancy, which in those days was half the battle, and grew up in the public eye as a beloved princess, at least until her teenage years, when her father's infatuation with Anne Boleyn led him to divorce her mother and break with the Catholic Church.

Talk about all in a family. Yeah, soap operas ain't got nothing on this. After the death of Henry and four stepmothers, her younger half-brother, Edward VI, took the throne as a Protestant reformer.

When Edward died six years later, he attempted to undermine his father's wishes by leaving the crown to his Protestant cousin, Lady Jane Grey, excluding those next in line, Mary and her younger half-sister, Elizabeth, from the succession. Mary chose to remain in England and fight for what was rightfully hers, eluding the armies of her antagonists. She rallied support from nobles across the country and marched on London.

Mary and Elizabeth rode into England's capitals side by side, one as a queen and the other as a queen-in-waiting. The myth of Bloody Mary is one mired in misconception. England's first queen was not a vindictive, violent woman nor a pathetic, love-struck wife who would have been better off as a nun.

She was stubborn, inflexible, and undoubtedly flawed. But she was also the product of her time, as incomprehensible to modern minds as our world would be to hers. She paved the way for her sister's reign.

Settling precedents Elizabeth never acknowledged stemmed from her predecessor, and accomplished much in such arenas as fiscal policy, religious education, and the arts. On the downside, Mary burned 280 Protestants, and Elizabeth disemboweled Catholics. The burnings, the main reason for Mary's nickname, are cited as justification for labeling her one of the evilest humans of all time.

For all her faults, and regardless of whether one falls into the competing camps of rehabilitation or vilification, Mary, the first to prove women could rule England with the same authority as men, holds a singular place in British history. She was an intelligent, politically adept, and resolute monarch who proved to be very much her own woman. Mary was the Tudor trailblazer, a political pioneer whose reign redefined the English monarchy.

As the Bishop of Winchester observed during Mary's December 1558 funeral sermon, Mary has a cocktail for her, containing vodka, tomato juice, and other spices, and flavorings including Worcestershire sauce, hot sauces, garlic, herbs, horseradish, celery, olives, salt, black pepper, lemon juice, lime juice, and celery salt. So why not bring a picture of Bloody Mary to your next funeral lunch? They will really heat up the joint. I want to go to that funeral lunch.

Yeah. So for the Bloody Mary recipe, to sit by the fireplace as you tell your children or grandchildren this pleasant bedtime story, please go to our webpage for this and additional resources for our programs. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and remember to rate and review this podcast.

E is for excellent. As a licensed non-profit organization, we are dependent on you, our beloved listeners, and always appreciate your donations, which are tax deductible. If you find this podcast to be of help to you, please go to our webpage to donate so that we can continue to provide quality shows about serious illness, death, dying, and bereavement at www.everyonedies.org. That's every the number one dies.org. Marianne? Thanks, Charlie.

So for our second half, we're going to talk about virtual funerals, and they were around before COVID-19, but COVID-19 kind of created a particular need for virtual funerals, both from the number of deaths and the fact that people couldn't get together in the same room. So a virtual funeral or a virtual memorial service brings family and friends together to celebrate a loved one. An online memorial may combine an in-person gathering at a funeral, home, church, or other venue with virtual guests.

The ceremony may include speeches from family and friends, music and singing, readings, poems, prayers, a group activity, an open mic where everyone can share a story, and even a virtual reception to connect informally in smaller groups. The point is we may want to share in the funeral ritual, but geography, money to travel, or time may prevent us from doing so. This virtual funeral memorial service enables friends and family to show up, even from far away, and it's meaningful for both you and for them as you're beginning in your grieving process.

I mean, I was able during COVID to go to my niece's wedding virtually. She had a camera set up and, you know, I could watch it all and feel, at least I got to see her get married. Yeah, yeah.

So that was pretty cool. So what's really involved in hosting a virtual memorial or funeral service? So Charlie, I got to tell you right off the top, spoiler alert, it involves technology. Oh, I don't even know how to spell technology.

Yes, I'm sorry, what? Yeah, I see the beads of sweat forming on your brow. Yes, and dripping onto the laptop. Oh, look, it's sparking now.

I'm sorry, what were you saying? Yeah, Charlie has a love-hate relationship with technology. No, no, I have to disagree with you. Just hates pretty much.

Just hates? Okay. So given that I can only see and talk to Charlie while I'm recording this, I'm going to give you, Charlie, nine tips for how to plan a virtual memorial service. All right, let me take notes.

On paper and pencil. Go ahead. Okay, yeah.

The other funny thing about Charlie is he always has a notebook and he's always writing notes, but I don't know if anybody could ever read them. Can you read them? Actually, no, I stopped because, Sandy, I was not aware, just simply writing a few words or a quick sentence. Hey, these mics are sensitive.

It picked up, remember, it was picking up my writing. So, no, no more notes. What was picking up your writing? Just simply the microphone.

Sandy could hear it and she couldn't. Oh, I see. Yeah, so no more notes.

Oh, boy. Yeah, now I just attach a post-it to my forehead. Of course, nothing's written on it, but then I hope I remember to fill in the blanks afterwards.

I'm sorry, so why don't you get on to something more important? Okay, so I'm going to file all of that under too much information. So, number one is to create a planning team. Although many people will gather to celebrate your loved one, there are usually a few people who would be most invested in helping.

So, who'll care most about the content of your celebration? Is it the immediate family? Who has administrative or technical skills to offer? Once you have your team, make sure you consult with them early in the planning process. And also, really think about having everybody who's in the family on your team because you need people who are not actively, heavily, I don't know what the right word would be, grieving, who can really take care of some of these details. Two is to simplify the decision making.

When you're planning an online funeral service, there are many competing interests. Working through everyone's ideas and suggestions while managing your own grief can become overwhelming. To simplify your decision making process, use your planning team as a guide.

Consider what will make the event most meaningful for them as you make decisions, unless your loved one has detailed wishes written out ahead of time. And boy, would people be so appreciative if y'all just did that because that way you get the funeral that you want, the music that you want, you know, the entertainment that you want, and it makes it easier for everybody else. It's all about preparation.

It's all about preparation. Well, it's not all about preparation, but preparation helps. So, number three, keep your traditions in new ways.

So, we often rely on family and cultural traditions, religion, or how we did it before to plan funeral memorial events. If everyone were physically gathered in one place, what would you normally do? Once you determine which traditions to include, give yourself room to create new rituals. You can incorporate things that were meaningful to your loved one.

For example, candle lighting, singing, readings of poems and verses, special toasts. Virtual events encourage creativity and flexibility, which will make your event truly memorable and personally meaningful. So, number four is to consider the tone.

Think about the tone you want to set for your gathering. How do you want the occasion to feel? Will it change over time? Is this a celebration of life or a traditional homegoing? For example, you could consider a more somber tone for the beginning and move to an uplifting or a celebratory tone as the event progresses. Your order of events, programs, speakers, and music choices all set the tone.

Number five, organize event contributors. Once you have everyone gathered, who's going to be up on the screen? Do you want to include an officiant, a clergy, a celebrant, singer, or musician? Within the inner circle, who'll want to speak on what topics and in what order? What time zones are they all in and is someone available to coordinate them? Now, you can do a calendar invite and you can set the time zone for where the event's going to be, and when you send it out to everybody, it'll fix the time for where the person is, so you don't have to spend a lot of time saying, well, I'm here and they're there, because you'll get goofed up. So use your Google Calendar if you know how to do that, and if you don't, have somebody on your team who does.

It's important to have different people overseeing the online aspect and in-person portion. Managing each requires full attention, so it's best to assign people who are not active participants or actively grieving. A friend of a family member that can dedicate their attention during the event to the technical details will be more suited than a spouse, a close family member of the honoree, Charlie, just get someone else.

So program elements that you can consider including, you can have a master or mistress of ceremonies or someone to deliver opening remarks and introduce the speakers. You can give an eulogy, you can have other additional speakers, you can have a reading, a poem, something from scripture. You can have performers, a musician or a singer.

You can have music, you can create a playlist to memorialize your loved one. Music's often a huge factor in one's life and great music is a fantastic way to honor your loved one. Spotify gives you a little more control.

Now Spotify for the uninitiated is a music streaming app, so Spotify gives you a little more control over what goes into the playlist, like if you want to listen to an entire album. But Pandora, which is also an online music streaming service, Pandora gives an opportunity to not only find a loved one's favorite songs, but songs they also might have liked. Both can be accessed on a phone or computer and connected to a speaker to provide a soothing or rocking ambience.

Charles? So, I do know a little bit about technology, Pandora is also a box, I know that. Okay, go on Marianne. You can have a group activity.

You could have people make toasts. In Russia, I used to teach in Russia, people would fill their shot glass up with vodka, they'd stand up and make a toast, you'd drink the whole thing down, kiss the bottom of the shot glass and turn it over on the table. And that would go on for hours and nobody could walk afterwards.

But, great toasts. Number six, you can create and share event materials. Once you finalize participants, consider how you'd like to communicate with your guests during the event.

You can provide an electronic program and share it during the event to keep everyone on the same page. Choose a musical selection to play with the program while guests are joining. On Facebook, you can build a memorial page or use it to organize preparations.

So, building something that's nice and clean in terms of a website from scratch is really hard, especially for those with very little technology experience. Facebook has an easy to use page creator that allows one to create a place on Facebook that can be personalized into a memorial page. Facebook can also be used to create online memorials that allows loved ones to comment and express their feelings to others.

In fact, if the deceased owned a Facebook account, the user's page is often slowly converted into a memorial after death, giving an automatic online memorial with no additional effort. You can use Facebook's event organizer to help create guest lists and organize memorial plans. Now, something that's pretty common at funerals nowadays is a slideshow with photos, videos, favorite music.

This can be part of the traditional event but can also be used in an online event. Families can create and share photo albums and slideshows through an app called Flickr. It's F-L-I-C-K-R, a place where thousands of people share their photos.

Photos can be edited and organized directly on the website or the many apps available for it. Flickr also makes it simple to give the photo collection to other people instead of worrying about file compatibility and other strange technological errors that PowerPoint can cause. With simple sharing abilities, it also makes it easy to display these collections at the funeral or the memorial service.

You might also consider sending an electronic thank you to your guests afterwards with your memorial page link and more information. Whichever elements you create, be sure to plan and practice the technical aspects of communicating with guests ahead of time for a seamless event. 7. Include everyone.

Gather all your family and friends. Share an announcement or invitations via social media, email, text. Surprisingly, virtual memorial events can feel even more personal than a traditional funeral.

In an online memorial service, you can see each other's faces up close and you can feel together. Family and friends can share stories and memories that other friends and families haven't heard, and you can record it so that others can watch it later and also so you can view it again. Unlike a one-way live stream where the camera records and the audience just views, a virtual memorial is interactive so guests can share stories to honor and celebrate your loved one.

Now, here's where the technology stuff comes in. 8. Choose your equipment and streaming platform. There is a variety of equipment that you can use to live stream a funeral.

You can produce the equipment yourself or the funeral home might already have equipment because these virtual funerals are more and more common. There's a wide range of video and audio capturing and recording gadgets for you to choose from, from basic cell phones to professional high-end videography equipment. If you'd rather keep it basic, most cell phones and our tablets can shoot video and audio and you can post it online through a program like Zoom, Skype, Facebook Live, things like that.

If you want to have a more professional presentation, you're going to need a professional camera, a laptop with plenty of processing power, and an internet connection, either directly or through Wi-Fi to obtain a higher quality live stream. So if you're going to have your virtual memorial service or funeral, let's say at the beach, it might not work if you don't have internet. So you need to think about these things.

This entails more equipment and setup, but the result will be considerably cleaner and clearer. If you're unable to obtain more advanced equipment or simply just don't know how to use it, the bare necessities for live streaming a funeral are smartphone, laptop, and a reliable internet connection. Now some of the best video streaming platforms for virtual funerals include Facebook, Skype, and Zoom.

The details on how to use these platforms can be found in your show notes under how to plan a virtual funeral service, because it's, you know, a little step by step. Click here, do this, and you don't want me telling you all that. So look at your show notes and you'll see it there.

As guests arrive to the streaming platform, you might want to put them in a waiting room. So there's like if you're having, let's say, a Zoom virtual funeral. As people come in, you can keep them like in this waiting room while you get everything else set up and then let them into the room.

These aren't virtual rooms, but you get the idea. They don't have to be watching you, you know, doing your sound check or whatever. You're going to really need to rehearse muting and unmuting participants, sharing media such as a slideshow program, checking volume levels, sound feedback, ensuring the speakers and guests know how to connect and have a good internet speed, and planning on troubleshooting any unexpected technical issues during the event.

If a group will gather in one location like a funeral home or a house of worship or a reception hall, you're going to need to set up the audiovisual connection between a large screen and the virtual gathering. A couple of days before the event, schedule rehearsal with all the speakers and performers for the event. Think of it like, you know, when you get married, you have a wedding rehearsal.

This is your rehearsal for your virtual funeral. Review the order of events. Make sure everyone knows their role.

Give them a chance to answer questions. During this walkthrough, make sure everyone can log into the event. Check your microphones and cameras and lighting to ensure that you can hear and see them.

Finally, make sure you have someone available to troubleshoot connection issues that might come up during the event. Anything can happen. So having somebody with a clear head and an understanding of technology is great to have standing by to fix whatever.

All this can sound like a lot, especially if you are technology impaired. But hold on, there's more. There are companies that'll handle all of this for you.

So starting at $1,200, you can have someone else plan and handle the details of virtual service. We're not endorsing any of these, but they are worthwhile to investigate. And I put a list of a few in the show notes.

So the fact that, I mean, I didn't know that there were companies that were doing it. It only makes sense that there are, but I really didn't know about that until I was doing this research. So be aware that you don't have to do the technology stuff yourself.

It's unlikely that virtual services will totally replace in-person gatherings, but I can see the value of giving people the chance to participate when time, distance, or money would normally interfere with being able to be there and be supportive for the person's family who's died. Charlie, any thoughts? I just have this vision of people from afar, even now with people working virtually, working from home, wearing a nice shirt, maybe a sweater looking very swanky, but in shorts or underwear beneath that. I don't know, I just find that it's a charming image if you're virtually attending a wedding.

Yeah, I would like to think that they would always, you know, people would always prefer something live and in person, but I don't know, with technology advancing and just the ease of not having to get dressed, go someplace, and all this sort of stuff. I mean, I hope everything doesn't go virtual, but I don't know, I can see that happening, just that that would one day take over just simply gathering with people. I don't know, it's because technology is seeming to be accelerating faster and faster, but yeah, I hope it never does replace it though.

And there was just a very, when you mentioned about, you know, being on the beach, I just had this image, you know, people get together, everything's planned, and you get to the beach and there's no internet. Yeah, you know, and it's like one of those things that everybody will look at each other and say, Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because you think it's always going to be everywhere.

Exactly, yeah, and it's not. Internet is not available everywhere. Yeah, yeah, so all right.

There you have it. Yep. What do we have for our third half, Charles? Well, what we have is Claire Lucky, who goes under the name GrievingBitch on Instagram, has joined the Everyone Dies correspondent team.

Yay! Cowbells, cowbells, cowbell sounds. Oh, wait! More cowbell! We need cowbell! There are worse things, ladies and gentlemen, but not much better. At age 32, and only five months into her marriage, her husband did not recognize her when she arrived home from work one day.

He was diagnosed with stage 4 glioblastoma, brain cancer to you and me, in February 2020. Claire was Matt's caregiver until his death in June of 2021. To begin to cope with this loss and trauma, she channeled her sense of humor and inner bitch by creating the GrievingBitch account on Instagram.

Claire is sharing her grief journey and challenges as a 34-year-old widow living in New York City with Everyone Dies in her regular bimonthly third half segment. Here's Claire. Hey, Claire, how you doing? Good, how are you, Marianne? Very well, very well.

So we, you and I, have decided that for kind of each interview that we have, we're going to talk about a particular, I guess, path along the road of Matt's illness from his diagnosis right through to his death and, you know, talk about it, pick it apart a little bit and help our listeners get a sense of your experience and also a sense of widowhood as a millennial, as a young person in their 30s. So today we were going to go back to February 4, 2020, and that was the day that you'd been at work and you came home and Matt didn't know who you are. So tell me what happened.

Yeah, so it was two days after the Super Bowl on a Tuesday, and my husband and I went to work. That night he was planning to go to a roller hockey league awards dinner. And I don't mean this, it's not a professional roller hockey league by any means, but it's more of a beer hockey league, but it's well organized and it's in our community.

So Matt grew up playing roller hockey most of his life and he was really great at it. So he was going to the party because he was going to get the award for best defenseman in his division. And I think it really ended up, yeah, I really think it ended up symbolizing so much of how he came back from his cancer in 2017, how much athleticism that he had brought back into his life.

So he was really looking forward to it. So anyway, we went to work that day and I was staying a little bit late to finish up something I was working on, and I wasn't planning to go to the hockey party. It's such a boy's night out, so I figured that's him.

And the clock crawls to 6 PM and I noticed his text became a little bit jumbled. He was kind of mixing up topics like cleaning up our cat's puke and the hockey party and his texts were a little slurred. So I figured he was just rushing around to clean up and the timing.

But nevertheless, I left work at seven o'clock and got out of the subway at 737. And I happen to know these times because I wrote everything down. And I called him twice and there was no answer.

So I stopped to grab dinner and walked into my apartment at 750. So we're about almost two hours from the initial text. And I was mildly concerned.

And the first thing I noticed when I walked in was that the oven was on and I went into the living room and I instantly knew something was wrong with Matt by looking at him. He was lying on the sofa. His eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling, and they were glossy.

And his phone was right next to him. He had a drink poured on the table. And I immediately was like, it's really weird that he didn't answer his phone because it's right next to him.

So I decided to ask some questions. And I said, hey, why didn't you answer my call? And he simply said, oh, I didn't know you called. And then I kept asking about dinner and things like that.

And he was giving me one word answers or he wasn't answering me at all. And then he got up and said he needed to get socks. So I let him get up and I thought that he was running or going for the front door instead of the bedroom.

And then I thought he was trying to dart out of the apartment. So I followed him, kind of grabbed his arm and and pulled him back. And he turned around and looked at me.

And in that second, that millisecond, I knew that he was scared. And I think he was scared because I was scared and he didn't know what was happening. So in that moment, I decided to gently and calmly escort him back to the sofa.

And I lovingly told him that I would get him his socks. I got the socks. And he was trying to put them on and couldn't do it.

And he gave up. And I didn't say anything because I didn't want him to dart out of our apartment again. And luckily, our cat was on the coffee table.

So he started to get distracted with that. And I was kind of encouraging it. And I was sitting next to him.

And that's when I was like, all right, I'm calling 911. And I, what really struck me about that moment was, I was explaining everything pretty much how I'm explaining it to you. And Matt was having no reaction to what I was saying to 911.

And normally, Matt would say, No, you're not. You're not calling. Exactly.

Like, I'm not that bad. Who cares about the gushing blood? Hang up the phone. I got a hockey party to go to.

Yeah. So, yeah, I call, they're on their way. And then I feel like I have nothing to do other than continue to ask him some questions.

So I'm kind of prying about the commute home. And he couldn't say anything. He didn't say anything.

So I knew he didn't remember it. And it scared the hell out of me. Because I thought, how long is he going to be this way? How long was he this way? It must have been since he just got home.

Because how would he have gotten into the apartment otherwise? Because he couldn't even put on his socks. So this couldn't have happened on the subway. Until you realized that he didn't know who you were.

So I didn't realize he didn't know who I was until the fire department showed up. And they were asking a lot of the similar questions that I was. And then they said, do you know who that woman is? And he didn't.

He struggled. And he said his mother's name. And then I started to have a panic attack.

I just, I knew right then and there that this was worse than I thought. And I broke out in hives, started to sweat. My heart was beating out of my chest.

And then five minutes after the EMTs arrived, Matt started to twitch. And then I knew it was going to be a seizure. And I knew since I was already starting to have a panic attack, I couldn't be in the room for it.

So I went into the kitchen. I got on all fours on the floor, just trying to do some breathing or something. And I heard him start to have the seizures and the paramedics were starting to restrain him.

And it took all of them to restrain this big hockey player. And I just felt like my energy was best to be in another room so I didn't have to witness it. And that's when I started to cry and vomit.

And it was just a hot mess in there. And what was going through my head wasn't that the brain cancer was back. I was terrified that Matt was actually going to be dying right in front of me.

And I didn't want to do that. Right. Oh my God, Claire.

That has to be. Do you feel like you have PTSD from that night? Yeah. I think that's going to be a defining, traumatic moment of my life that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

And I had, I'd seen three or four seizures and that one was the worst one. And no one really gives you seizure one-on-one until it's too late. And the thing that, you know, the thing about seizures is they can all be different.

It's like a spectrum, but I didn't, his seizure was so different than the one in 2017. I think that's why I didn't connect that this could have been a reoccurrence. I thought he was dying.

Right. Because it's certainly those really bad seizures are frightening on lots of different levels without, you know, the thought of, oh my God, you know, this is, this is the last. And actually, when you were telling me that he was sitting there staring, my first thought was, well, he was having a seizure then.

Because seizures can look like that, but just they're staring and not answering. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah.

So did they take you in the ambulance too, since you were having a panic attack? Well, after Matt finished seizing, I saw that as my opportunity to pack a go bag. So I immediately went into my bedroom and threw in Matt's clothes, tablet, phone charger, water bottle, the great Gadsby book. And for the record, I put in socks because that, that seemed to be important.

And I, I'm coming back in and the EMTs are seeing me like, like in hives with tears and like all, like just, just such a state, like in this shattered state. And they, they looked at me, they took one look at me and said, you guys are going in separate ambulances to the hospital. And it could just be protocol that it was that way, but I, it, it furthered my, oh my gosh, is my husband not going to survive the ride to the hospital? And that's why we're separated because they don't want us to be together because he's not going to make it.

That might've been, you know, there, you know, at that point, they don't know what's going to happen next. So I mean, I don't, I'm not an emergency nurse, nor do I play one on TV. So I can only guess that it, it, it was probably a good call just in case.

Right. In hindsight, that was the right move. A hundred percent.

I think that was the, yeah, that was it. Plus who knew, you know, how bad you might, you know, continue to get in terms of being able to breathe or something like that. You know, it could have been that you ended up being worse off on the way to the hospital.

You know, anything is possible when you're in those states and it's, it was such a devastating, disturbing, you know, powerful experience. And you guys had only been married five months at this point, right? That's right. We've been together five months.

So they get, they get you in the ambulance and they take you to the hospital. And how long did men have to stay in the hospital? What happened? So he, we, we first, first things first, I didn't know where to go again. And I was having a hard time deciding what hospital to bring him to.

And I think that was part of me being in a state of shock. And we ended up going back to the hospital where he had his first surgery, which is Lenox Hill in New York. And when we got there he was still disoriented and he didn't completely understand where he was and what's going on.

So I remember asking the EMTs what to do. And I remember them saying, you should talk to him. And I remember that being a very impossible task because I felt lost.

I felt like I didn't know if he was going to come back to who he was. And I remember sitting at the foot of his bed trying to keep him calm, but he was still trying to rip out his IVs. So I didn't really know how long we were going to be there.

And we ended up staying for, we ended up staying for two days because there were a lot of tests that they wanted to order. And fortunately, over the course of the next few hours, Matt slowly became to return to who he was. He slowly became to recognize me again.

And it started with him becoming paranoid and aggressive towards me, asking him why he brought me there, why I did this to him, and things like needing to figure out who was on his side. But fortunately, it dissipated around 10 PM. So it was about a four hour ordeal.

And I remember recanting the story to one of the ER doctors. And he was in absolute shock and horror when he heard the full story that we just went through. Because the last thing he remembered was sending a text about our cat vomiting.

And he had such a funny little relationship with our cat's vomit. He manages to always step in it. Oh my God, Claire.

Well, as hard as I know it had to been for you to tell us that story. I really appreciate your courage in sharing it with our listeners and helping people kind of get inside this journey of this diagnosis of the Glioblastoma. So thank you, Claire.

I really appreciate you talking with us about this. You're welcome. I'm happy to share my story.

And that's the end of our third segment. Thanks to Claire Lucky. You can please check her out on Instagram as The Grieving Bitch.

Thanks, Claire. That's it for this episode. Please stay tuned for the continuing saga of Everyone Dies.

And thank you for listening. This is Charlie Navarette. Like satin through an hourglass, so do raindrops keep falling on my head.

And from Eugene Levy, Emmy winner for Schitt's Creek, when asked how he would like to die, responded, in my sleep, in bed, with a half-eaten egg salad sandwich on my chest. And I'm Marian Matzo. We'll see you next week.

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