The Gray Zone: When Life Support No Longer Supports Life

The patient is no longer able to speak, and you're responsible for making medical decisions..... It's that fuzzy place where it's not clear if life-support measures are really supporting life and allowing the body to heal, or only masking the reality that death is inevitable. The medical staff gives you options and possible treatments, and then they look expectantly to you. When do you let go and stop? When is enough, enough? You make decisions based on what you know from your medical team and what you know about your loved one's definition of quality of life. You do the best you can. You're in The Gray Zone. It's a really lonely place to be.