I was in a room listening to physicians talk about intensive care and how timelines were important to patient care and to providing health care. Patients get better when they’re treated. Or they don’t.

If they get better, doctors know why. And the same is true if patients don’t get better. If certain things were going to happen, like recovery, then they would have happened.

The importance of recognizing that trend along with all the other information available is freeing. It can free you to choose well. It can enable a person to have a good death and a good life in the sense that there’s life to live after the next decision.