As a nurse I’ve cared for hundreds of people who are going into surgery, women who are in labor, people who have cancer, people who are dying. It has been both a privilege and a burden. It brings me face to face with my mortality, my frailty, and my need to figure out what this thing called ‘Life’ is all about.

I have sat with people waiting for their last breath, only to realize there would be none. I have been beside women as they gave birth to still-born babies, weeping with them as tears streamed down their cheeks. Tears that fell on the heads of babies who did not feel them or know the pain of their mamas.

I have cleaned up vomit, suctioned mucus, emptied bedpans,

So there is one thing I can tell you with certainty: There is no dignity in being sick. There is no dignity in…