Mm.

You know, living with serious illness and not having open conversations about what matters most to you, what are the goals of care we're hoping for, what are the benefits of the treatments that are being offered, what are the burdens, that that long period of time, which can be weeks, months, or years, can be a really important time to kind of recalibrate and to pause and to sayDo I still believe in this treatment that we're going for? Or what, what, um, what is the reality of the disease that I'm living with? And is my body trying to die? And all the sort of intermediate questions that don't get talked about when we don't talk about what matters most to us.

So there's that whole period of time before death that I think can be fraught for many people.

And I can see what a difference is made when people do choose to talk more openly with their healthcare team or with their families about where am I? What's most important? Um, what quality of life am I living with now, and is this acceptable to me? Um, and then there's one other area, and that is, um, you might say the, the benefits, the gifts of having more open conversations.

That when we talk more openly, it connects us.

It, there's a vulnerability there.

There's a kind of intimacy in talking about, um, serious illness and living with serious illness and being able to initiate the conversation about grief and sadness.

Jan, I wanna ask you, after supporting so many people, companioning so many families as they walk through end of life issues and death and dying, how has your own relationship with mortality changed?