Category Archives: death and dying

Death and dying is the one subject no one wants to talk about, but we must. We need to think about how we want to live at the end of our lives; what’s important to us; what we value. And then we have to tell our loved ones and our medical team so they will know how to care for us if we cannot speak for ourselves.

Advance Care Planning, baby boomers, caregiving, death and dying, dementia care, elder care, long-term care, patient education, wellness

Why It Matters to Talk About Values with Dementia Patients

Leave a comment

As relieved as we are about finally seeing the awful year 2020 in the rearview mirror, I’d say that one useful thing the pandemic has given us is an in-your-face awareness of mortality and the gravity of serious illness. And it’s given us permission to talk about it more freely.

But what about loved ones who may be newly diagnosed with dementia? As caregivers know only too well, dementia progresses to the point where ultimately those afflicted may not be able to think clearly, reason well or speak. They become increasingly dependent on others for their care. So, to honor these loved ones, to support them in the way they’d want to care for themselves and to make sure that medical professionals understand the best way to respect what matters to them, it is vital to ask the questions regarding future care when loved ones are still able to articulate their answers.

How do you even begin to discuss these life-and-death issues? Especially if loved ones are anxious about their health and their future, or resistant to the idea that anything is wrong at all? Before trying to talk about the pros and cons of specifics of what I’d call “the Big Three” — CPR, mechanical ventilation and feeding tubes – it’s important to talk about values first. One great source of advice for this is the <a href="http://(https://theconversationproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/ConversationProject-StarterKit-Alzheimers-English.pdf) which offers a “starter kit” for those caring for people with dementia, at various stages.

The starter kit stresses the importance of beginning with exploring what matters to loved ones, what they fear, what kind of setting they envision if they were at the end of life, how involved they want to be in their medical care and who they’d like to have around them. It also emphasizes the importance of keeping the talk simple. Its questions are clear and straightforward. Finally, it stresses how important it is that you convey that this process is an act of love and that you will be there to support your loved one, no matter what.

Understanding loved ones’ values provides the framework for future decisions as dementia progresses. Advance directives, and health care proxies (those who will be responsible for speaking for loved ones) should reflect these values.

Some Points to Consider About Artificial Nutrition

Of the “Big Three,” let’s focus here just on artificial nutrition (feeding tubes): Sadly, people in the final stages of dementia may not remember how to eat, or be able to chew and swallow. Artificial nutrition is one solution to this issue, but it is not without its own problems According to the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, for patients near the end of life, artificial nutrition and hydration is unlikely to prolong life and can potentially lead to medical complications and increased suffering. How? For starters, it makes people feel bloated, nauseated, and/or develop diarrhea.

Experts say it’s better to offer a little food or something to drink, and if your loved one wants it, even a minimal amount, fine. If not, don’t force it. There are other ways to continue to nourish your loved one, if food and fluids are no longer an option.

A useful template of an advance directive for people with dementia, published by End of Life Washington, addresses the feeding-by-hand issue. It states, “If I accept food and drink (comfort feeding) when they’re offered to me, I want them. I request that oral food and fluids be stopped if, because of dementia, any of the following conditions occur:

• I appear to be indifferent to being fed.
• I no longer appear to desire to eat or drink.
• I do not willingly open my mouth
• I turn my head away or try to avoid being fed or given fluids in any other way.
• I spit out food or fluids.
• I begin a pattern of coughing, gagging or choking on or aspirating (inhaling) food or fluids.
• The negative medical consequences of symptoms of continued feeding and drinking, as determined by a qualified medical provider, outweigh the benefits.”

No doubt this is all a lot of food for thought (pardon the pun) for caregivers and loved ones alike. But it’s the hard work of discussing and documenting loved ones’ values and wishes that will be the foundation for the compassionate and appropriate care that loved ones deserve later on in the course of illness.

Wishing everyone a safe, healthy and happy 2021.

Advance Care Planning, baby boomers, caregiving, death and dying, elder care, hospice care, Medical Crisis, National Healthcare Decisions Day, patient education

Planning Ahead in the Time of Covid-19

Leave a comment

One way the coronavirus pandemic has upended what we think of as normal life is how we think about mortality.

How? First, while there’s still so much we don’t know about the virus, what’s clear is that it can, with startling rapidity, do fatal damage even to otherwise-healthy people. It might be a matter of just days or weeks between the time a person first experiences symptoms and the time that person becomes critically ill.

Second, the very sick patients in assisted living, skilled nursing facilities, or in hospital intensive care units must bear the burden of illness alone; visits from loved ones are prohibited. That means a loss of the comfort of being together through a harrowing ordeal.

Third, patients on ventilators must be sedated, and are unable to speak to their loved ones. So there’s no way to have any kind of conversations, much less talks about goals of medical care. Nor can nurses or doctors do what palliative care and hospice physicians have always done best, which is to listen to patients about their lives, their hopes and fears, and to assure them with their very presence that the patients are well cared for.

Fourth, because we cannot gather in groups, we cannot depend on the comfort of family and friends and the time-honored rituals of grieving at funerals or memorial services. Much has been written about the concept of complicated grief, and this pandemic will certainly require a whole new chapter.

This is the horrifying reality that we see and read about, day after day. So it seems to me that this National Healthcare Decisions Day takes on more of a sense of immediacy than it may have in the past. That is, now is the time to think about what kind of care we’d want if we could not speak for ourselves; discuss it with family; get it in writing; and designate a health care proxy.

Of course, it is still true that it’s impossible to decide what kind of treatment you’d want, or not want, if you don’t understand what these treatments entail.

Let’s talk about ventilation, as an example. The best article I’ve read about the why’s and how’s of ventilation is one by Daniela Lamas, MD, a critical care physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and I urge you to read it.

Before Covid-19, my advance care plan said “no thanks” to it. But it seems key to saving the lives of some extremely ill Covid-19 patients and I would not refuse it if I had the virus.

What Dr. Lamas does not mention, though, is that typical time on the ventilator has been longer, on average (up to two weeks or even more) for Covid-19 patients than it has been in conventional uses. That in itself can lead to possible lung damage as well as emotional and psychological issues for recovering patients. Nor does she mention the sad fact that being on a ventilator does not guarantee survival. While it’s still too early to say what percentage of Covid-19 patients do survive ventilation, a large study on that, done by the Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre in London, found that just 33 out of 98 ventilated patients in the U.K were discharged alive.

So there’s plenty to think about on this National Healthcare Decisions Day. But, hey, we’re home, we’ve got some time on our hands. Pour yourself a glass of wine, or something stronger, and talk it over. And if you need a little guidance getting started, here’s a great resource.

Advance Care Planning, baby boomers, death and dying, elder care, patient education, Uncategorized

Having ‘The Talk’ With Mom and Dad

Leave a comment

Editor’s note: Did you know that April 16th is National Health Care Decisions Day? Of course, the pandemic has made us all just that much more aware of our mortality, so it’s an excellent time to think about the kind of care we’d want if we couldn’t speak for ourselves. Or: to learn what our parents would want. Not an easy talk to have, certainly! This guest blog, by systems engineer William Donaldson, explains how he had multiple such conversations with his parents — and why they proved so valuable. He’s also writing a book about it, available this summer, “Estimated Time of Departure: How I Talked to My Parents to Death: A Love Story.”

For reasons I still do not fully understand, I wanted to know what my parents wanted for their end of life. What I learned in shepherding my parents on their journeys is that the discussions, while hard and sad, are also incredibly liberating and rewarding. The feeling of control and certainty were ironically comforting since I was certain I was going to be losing my parents. But knowing precisely what each of my parents wanted and sharing that with my siblings long before we needed to face the event became a wonderful, loving gift. When the time came (Dad died in August 2009 and Mom died in March 2011) there were no questions or regrets; we all knew exactly what needed to be done.

When I first started pressing the issue, probably 10-12 years before the events, my parents were dismissive of the need. As time moved on, they became evasive and would change the subject. Finally, after many aborted attempts, we broke through and started to talk in earnest. But why did it take so long?

Here is why I believe they resisted. My parents were fiercely independent and had a work ethic that required one to “buck up” and fight through whatever the issue they were facing. They did not want to be reliant on or a burden to anyone. Finally, I think they didn’t want to burden their children, or anyone else, with their issues. They were very private, and they did not wish to have anyone intruding into their space. I believe all these feelings are normal and caused avoidance and deflection. Only when it became apparent that some things were going to have to change due to physical limitations, and when my siblings and I told my parents that we needed to know how the movie ended, that we began to have the productive end of life discussions.

My parents had raised five children and, while we had our differences and spats, we all loved one another and got along well. We talked and visited often. As my parents aged, they named me and my brother, Alec, executors of their estate. My parents did all the right things concerning wills, powers-of-attorney, DNRs, and all the legal, rational, and biological decisions. In that regard, we were blessed.

However, as their lives wound down, it became clear to me that the emotional and biographical elements of their end of life were still unknown to us. As I was living in the same town, I had access to my parents, and I took it upon myself to explore those aspects of their end of life. I kept my brothers and sister informed at every step, and they helped encourage my parents to open up about their wishes. I believe my parents needed to hear from all of us that we were okay with them having these discussions. We all became very philosophical that we had to have these discussions. This openness and resolve paved the way for genuinely heartfelt, loving, liberating discussions.

These hard, emotional discussions paid off handsomely at my parents’ end of life. When those times came, there were no surprises. None of us had to wonder what our parents wanted. Our parents knew that we were comfortable with the inevitability. Both of my parents were able to identify the right time and circumstance for their deaths. They were ready to accept hospice services, and we all had beautiful long, loving goodbyes, without regret for what hadn’t been said. They both died peacefully. I believe their knowing that they had prepared themselves and their children for the inevitability changed everyone’s experience for the better.

So, don’t wait until it is too late. Don’t miss the opportunity to take control of this event. Have the discussions you need to have. Make these declarations ahead of time. You can do it.

Here are some thoughts from my siblings and my journey to help with yours.

Don’t wait – Since death is inevitable, why not talk about what you think and feel about that inevitability?
Talk early – Dealing with these discussions at the last minute, during highly stressful episodes, does not help matters at all. As morbid as it sounds, the best time to have these discussions is when you feel the most alive. Being reasonably sure the specter of death is some time off relieves some of the stress the topic inevitably brings.
Talk often – People can change their minds. Don’t feel pressured only to talk once and resolve all the issues.
Write it down – Whatever decisions you come to, as parent or child of parents, write them down.
Share it – Share these thoughts with everyone who needs to know.

My experience of shepherding my parents to the end of their lives turned out to be one of the most loving and rewarding chapters in my life. I hope hearing that will give you the courage to have these most important conversations.

Advance Care Planning, baby boomers, death and dying, Mental health, patient education, Uncategorized

What’s Your Mountain?

Leave a comment

A year before Isabella de la Houssaye reached the summit of a 22,840-foot-high mountain peak in the Andes with her daughter Bella, she had been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.

The 55-year-old, an outdoors enthusiast, and her husband David Crane had five children, aged 16 to 25, all of whom had conquered outdoor adventures together with the family and as individuals. So after recovering sufficiently from grueling cancer treatment and feeling stronger, Isabella was determined to have other adventures with each of her children, individually, in large part to impart life lessons to them.

The climb to the top of Aconcagua in Argentina with college-junior Bella, with a team that included a New York Times reporter and photographer, is a remarkable story of almost unimaginable challenges, courage, grit and determination. It was featured in a lengthy article in the Times that you can read here.

One passage in the story that I found especially moving – and thankfully its lesson is not dependent on climbing a mountain to learn from – records Isabella’s attitude about illness:

“So much of who I was was defined by my physical strength,” she said. “It’s definitely hard being sick and saying goodbye to the person you were before. You have to redefine yourself, and you don’t want to define yourself as a sick person. I’m learning that you have to find acceptance with the decline.”

Facing Mortality Head-On

Her story is inspiring, to say the least. But I must admit that after I read it, I knew that if at some point I am diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, my first thought would not be: let me call my son and propose that we climb a 22,840-foot-high mountain together. As I kept thinking about Isabella’s ultimately successful ordeal, though, I wondered: what would I do (after emerging from a period of hiding and mourning my life under the covers)?

It’s an important question, one that many of us don’t think about much. How do I know that? For the past several months, I’ve been giving “Conversation of Your Life” talks to various groups. It’s all about advance care planning: having the conversation with loved ones about your treatment preferences if you cannot speak for yourself; choosing a health care proxy; preparing an advance directive; and communicating with your doctors about what you want and what you don’t want. Essential issues.

What I try to stress, though, is that the first and most important part of this process of communication is to communicate with yourself. That is, to confront your mortality head-on. So much flows from that. It isn’t all about medical treatments, just as serious illness itself isn’t just a medical issue. It’s about what you feel you want and need to do before you can no longer do it. It’s about how you want to live the rest of your life – honoring your sense of what gives your life meaning and purpose. It’s about the kind of legacy you want to leave. It’s about who you want to surround yourself with. And unfinished business to attend to.

When I talk about this fundamental part of communication, I sometimes ask my audience, who has given some thought to this? What are you envisioning? The response? Crickets, typically. Either no one has given this any thought, or people feel too shy or embarrassed to share.

Sharing Your Values

So I’ll share some of what I’d like. If I am gravely ill and still have my wits about me, I’d like a big good-bye party, with lots of food and lots to drink. I’d like to hear from family and friends about what I’ve meant to them, what they’ll remember, how I’ve affected them and funny stories they can tell. All the wonderful and moving things that people say at funerals that the deceased don’t get to hear. (At least we don’t have any evidence that they do.) I want to hear it before I go.

And, speaking of food: We’ve been hosting Thanksgiving and Passover for decades and in recent years our small family has happily grown to include seven grandchildren and cousins’ grandchildren, aged six and under. As you might imagine, these events are like organized chaos, but always seem too short. One reason I love to keep doing this is that I am hoping that all the younger-generation cousins and their children will continue to recognize how precious these times are and will keep the tradition going.

Clearly, Isabella had grander things in mind, but fundamentally she wanted to impart her values and wishes to her family. She succeeded in accomplishing what she set out to do. After reaching the summit, Isabella said, “It was so important to me that Bella and I have this experience together. I really wanted her to see that when things get hard, you can find a place inside yourself to keep going.”

An important lesson for all of us.

What’s your mountain?

Advance Care Planning, death and dying, elder care, Medical Crisis, patient education

A: Battle Fatigue. Q: What Kind of Words Shouldn’t We Use About Illness?

1 Comment

I’m sure you’re as sad as I am, on hearing the news about Jeopardy’s Alex Trebek’s Stage IV pancreatic cancer diagnosis. Can we even imagine Jeopardy with someone else? Well, apparently, Alex can’t either because he’s vowed to “fight this” and “beat it,” and make good on the remaining three years of his contract.

But I’m sad too, at his reliance on the kind of terminology that seems to infect so much writing about serious illness. It’s a battle. No, it’s a war. You want to win it.

Here’s what comes from seeing illness through that lens: if your disease progresses, does that mean you’re not fighting hard enough? If you’re too tired or even grumpy to be positive and put your best foot forward, does that mean the disease is winning the battle? And if your family and friends are urging you on to keep fighting, does that mean you’re disappointing them and that it must be some character weakness in you, if you just don’t want to?

Illness can be unpredictable, wily and complicated. It is not necessarily amenable to your strength of will and your determination to overcome it. Instead, how about dedicating yourself to treatment, doing your best to eat, sleep and live as well as you can for as long as you can?

I would have liked to have heard that from Alex. I also think he has a great opportunity to teach his audience about the nature of serious illness, the shock to the system, the ups and downs, the complications, the satisfaction of good days. And how great would it be if he sent out another message, telling us about his advance directive, and why he made the choices he’s made?

So I wish nothing but successful treatment ahead for Alex, and at least another three years on that contract. But please, no more war metaphors!

Advance Care Planning, baby boomers, death and dying, elder care, hospice care, Medical Crisis, palliative care, patient education, Uncategorized

Talking About….Life, Ageism, Death and Everything in Between

Leave a comment

Had a wide-ranging conversation about how the media portrays (or doesn’t) elders, serious illness; how people misunderstand palliative and hospice care; and lots more on Barry Lynn’s “Culture Shocks” podcast.

You can listen to our half-hour conversation in the second half of the podcast.

Advance Care Planning, baby boomers, death and dying, elder care, patient education

My “Comfy” Awards for Media Excellence

2 Comments

Photo: Netflix

Welcome to the new year!

We are now in the midst of the 2019 film awards season, after the kickoff of the always amusing and entertaining Golden Globes. It reminds me that for some time, I’ve longed (in vain) for some kind of media awards event for accurate portrayals about late life. But to whom would those awards go? Alas, few recent films and TV programs might qualify.in late life, frailty, illness, death, loss and grieving don’t translate into blockbuster ticket sales.

But in the past year I’ve found a few standouts, mostly online, that deserve recognition. So in the spirit of the season, let’s call it the “Comfy Awards,” and I’m awarding “Comfys” to:

BoJack Horseman, “Free Churros,” Season 5, Episode 6, on Netflix

I should tell you that I feel that animated films and television programs can have more artistry, humanity and complex storytelling than many conventional live-action films. I’m a huge fan of the Toy Story films, Inside Out and most recently, the brilliant Isle of Dogs, for example. I’m also a huge fan of Bob’s Burgers on TV.

But right now BoJack Horseman is probably my favorite. This Netflix series chronicles the “Hollywoo” (that’s what Hollywood is called here) life of BoJack Horseman, a self-loathing and depressed former TV sitcom star, voiced by the actor Will Arnett. The premise of this world is that a dizzying variety of anthropomorphic creatures interact easily and regularly with human beings. BoJack’s agent, for example, is a cat, Princess Caroline, voiced by Amy Sedaris. The show is by turns hilarious, bitingly satiric, poignant and occasionally moving.

“Free Churros” is a stunning example of the latter. It consists of a 20-minute monologue by BoJack, who is delivering a eulogy to his mother. It is more of a stream-of-consciousness and it artfully suggests why BoJack is as self-involved, troubled and self-destructive as he is.

This is what struck me: Loss and grief are so much more complicated for those who have had strained or stormy relationships with their parents. There’s so much unfinished business. So much anger and resentment on top of the heartache of feeling a void that will never be filled. BoJack clearly had a fraught relationship with his mother (and an even more difficult relationship with his father). This episode beautifully captures all of pain and ambivalence about losing a parent in these circumstances. And still manages to end with a very clever joke.


“What Doctors Know About CPR,” Topic (online magazine)

I think it’s hard to prepare an advance directive if you don’t know precisely what some measures – like cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) – really entail. Most of us have a general idea, probably from watching heroic and often extremely successful CPR episodes on our favorite medical TV shows. And using that as our guide, we might reasonably think, why not opt for that? There are plenty of reasons why not, in fact.

But it’s one thing to be told, or to read, about the risks and dangers of CPR; it’s quite another to see a graphic representation of what the process and its more often than not ill effects are. For that, we thank Dr. Nathan Gray, a palliative care physician at Duke University School of Medicine, who wrote and illustrated a graphic piece about the realities of CPR for Topic, an online magazine.

“CPR begins when a heart stops, the last domino to fall on the cascade toward death,” Dr. Gray writes. He illustrates a Code Blue being called, the mechanics and impersonality of the process and the statistics showing how few people actually survive intact.

“Until you witness it in person it can be hard to capture the inhumanity of our medical routine,” he writes. He urges the medical community to not let technology interfere with its humanity.

The piece is essential reading, and undoubtedly I will be using it in future talks about advance care planning.

Time Goes By blog, Ronni Bennett

Ronni Bennett has been writing her blog Time Goes By all about aging, for some time. But I didn’t discover it until several months ago when Kaiser Health News wrote a story about her.

Last fall, Bennett’s doctors told her that her pancreatic cancer had metastasized to her lungs and her peritoneum (which lines the cavity of the abdomen) and that there were treatment options but no cure for her condition. Now, if I’d been given this news, my first inclination would probably have been to hide under the covers in bed. Bennett’s inclination, though, was to write about it. And to keep writing, because for her that was a way of better understanding herself. Her hope was to approach the last chapter of her life “alert, aware and lucid,” she said.

“There’s very little about dying from the point of view of someone who’s living that experience,” she told Kaiser Health News. “This is one of the very big deals of aging and, absolutely, I’ll keep writing about this as long as I want to or can.”

Reading Bennett is, in fact, like having a great talk with a good friend. She is great company, amusing, touching and honest above all. About what she calls her terrors. About the ridiculous moments (she needs a new heater and thinks, Really? Now?) and the transcendent moments (a carefully guided psilocybin trip that she says has given her a greater sense about life and death). She has a large, avid readership and her honesty has made it possible for readers to share their stories, too. She also posts “The Alex and Ronni Show” — videos of her Skyped conversations with her ex-husband.

Most recently, she wrote: “However short or long my remaining days may be, it is a great gift I have received, knowing my death is near. It led to what I think is the most important question in the circumstance: what do you want to do with the time that remains?”

That’s a question we all need to think about. So, I’m awarding a “Comfy” to Ronni Bennett for the great service she is doing for all of us.

Do you have any suggestions for “Comfy” awards? I’d love to hear about them!

Advance Care Planning, baby boomers, culture change, death and dying, elder care, hospice care, palliative care, patient education, Uncategorized

Yea or Nay on Medical Aid in Dying?

Leave a comment

Hawaii has become the latest state to enable medical aid-in-dying, and  public opinion has been shifting more in favor of it in the past couple of years.  It’s still an enormously controversial subject and too often advocates on both the “pro” and “con” side shed more heat than light on it.  I wrote this blog piece for http://sixtyandme.com in hopes of providing a little light.

Spoiler alert: I am opposed to medical aid-in-dying. Not for religious reasons, or because it violates the medical principle of “do no harm” or even because of fear of the “slippery slope” that would harm the most vulnerable among us.

In short, it seems to me that this evolution is more of a striking and continuing indication of the sorry state of end-of-life care currently, than it is a rational health care solution for those suffering terminal illnesses.

You can read the piece here: http://sixtyandme.com/exploring-both-sides-of-the-physician-aided-dying-conversation/

Advance Care Planning, baby boomers, Book Reviews and News, death and dying, elder care, long-term care, Medical Crisis, patient education, wellness

It’s Healthcare Decisions Time! Focus on What You Want, Not on What You Don’t

1 Comment

Happy National Healthcare Decisions Day! Actually, it’s a whole week, starting April 16. The Day was created to remind all of us of the importance of  having a conversation with our family and friends about what kind of care we’d want, if we couldn’t speak for ourselves; and of having a written advance care directive and a health care proxy to speak for us.

And, in honor of the week, my book, “Last Comforts: Notes from the Forefront of Late Life Care,” is now available in all e-book venues – Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Kobo and more  — for the new low, low price of $5.99!

It’s a good week to think about your bucket list, too, which I wrote about in this Sixtyandme.com post.

Personally, I’ve never been a fan of the idea of coming up with a bucket list. At heart, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this, my clear preference is to focus on the less spectacular but just as satisfying smaller pleasures of daily life. And being grateful for the sometimes unexpected joys to be found there.

The photo accompanying this post is a good example of what I mean. I’m sure that seeing the Grand Canyon is probably atop lots of bucket lists. My husband and I were fortunate enough to be able to visit the South Rim a couple of years ago and of course, it was breathtaking. But here was my favorite moment (although the photo doesn’t do it justice). We had emerged from lunch around the same time as a heavy rain had stopped and there – so close you could practically reach out and touch it – was a rainbow. An unexpected, once-in-a-lifetime vision.

But my bucket list skepticism changed before I read about research conducted by the Stanford Letter Project at the Stanford University School of Medicine. As Dr. VJ Periyakoil, founder of the Stanford Letter Project, pointed out in a compelling opinion piece in The New York Times, it’s important not only to write down several things you’d like to accomplish, experience, see or share – and update your list from time to time as your feelings change – but also to share this with your physicians.

Why? Because they need to know what’s important to you if they are going to provide the best possible care for you, the individual.

If you’re having a problem identifying three to five main goals, Stanford has come up with a handy toolkit to help you. So share the list with your doctor. If you have a chronic illness, the toolkit advises, “Ask your doctor what you need to know about your health and illnesses and if they will prevent you from reaching your goals. Especially ask them about if any treatments they are proposing will prevent you from living your life as you wish to.”

Rethinking the bucket list question, I considered another reason why sharing your list with physicians is an excellent idea. The truth is, so much of thinking about advance care planning and preparing advance care directives has to do with what we don’t want. CPR, yes or no? Feeding tubes, yes or no? Mechanical ventilation, yes or no?

The bucket list, on the other hand, is a clear roadmap for our loved ones and physicians to understand what we do want. So it can be a lovely, positive complement to the admittedly sobering and potentially unpleasant work of envisioning our end-of-life care preferences.