EOL (End of Life) Plan

We always considered ourselves a happy, healthy family, and in retrospect we had relatively “normal” lives…until one day our mom and our dearest friend, at age 54, was diagnosed with a rare terminal cancer with low odds of survival. She wanted to focus on hope, and we were completely naïve to the cancer world. We knew the data online was bleak, but we lived in a space where it felt like none of the trauma could really be happening to us, what we saw on online or read in books couldn’t be real, could it? We believed things could be OK with all our heart, and focused on that. And thus, we did not begin to prepare, ourselves or our mom, and this is something we’ll always regret. Do we regret living with hope? Never. But we do regret having to have last minute painful conversations and making difficult decisions within the pressure of the hospital room. In those sleepless nights and painful days, we wish we hadn’t had to focus on legal paperwork, but instead focus entirely on our mom, on being there as her family and her friends. Our hope, years later, is to help others be more prepared than we were. We will always cherish those final weeks with our mom. But if we could make that time less stressful for others, we’d do so in a heartbeat.. Having a plan won’t make the end come any sooner, or any later, but when it does come, we hope this makes it just a bit easier - for you, and all of those you love.