When I worked in the ICU in my 20’s, there was a 32 year old mom of three with bone cancer that she had been fighting for a while. She was dying, so she had gone to Mexico for some experimental treatment, which did nothing and she came back worse. Her family was very religious and was continually pressuring her to fight because “it would be sinful to give up, and what would her daughters think that she didn’t do everything to stay with them?!?” She was in so much pain, the amount of narcotics she took in an hour would have k****d me if I took it over the span of a day. The cancer was so bad that you could feel the tumors when you touched her and her skin would sometimes break open and bleed. She was in and out of the unit for about a year, and her family (husband and parents) was pressuring her to keep going with futile treatment. She was alone most of the time with us, in horrible pain, while her family visited in between living their lives. She was offered support to talk with her family if she wanted to change her mind about her care, but she didn’t want to go against them. Her husband had flown states away to attend a religious conference and her parents were out of town with her kids when she started imminently dying. The family tried to get home in time but she died with only us nurses at her side. When I turned 33, I thought about how I’m older than she ever got to be. I’m in my 40’s now and am still thinking of her. The way she died was cruel and it didn’t have to be.