Man I wish I had an answer for you. I've said on here more than a few times, my eldest sister is battling lung cancer right now. She is stage 3b non-small cell. This means that she has had lymph nodes in the middle of the chest, on the opposite side of the tumor, test positive for cancer. She has no metastases outside the chest at this point, so treatment although unlikely to be curative, is to keep the tumor in check and hope it doesn't escape out of the chest. Lung cancer likes to go primarily to the bones, the adrenal gland, the liver or the brain. So every scan I hold my breath as I read the reports and look for something in any of those areas.

I work in the field, so I am all too aware of the odds and the numbers. When she first met the oncologist, he told her that her stage of NSCLC has a median survival of 22 months. That basically says that at 22 months, half the people with her stage and type of cancer will be dead. We are at 13 mnths now. Those first few weeks were very tough on her and everyone in the family. Now, I guess you could say we have fallen into a groove of living 3 months to 3 months (when they scan to look for disease progression), hoping for the best but always remembering what we are dealing with. A good scan, I say OK, we have 3 months, what should we do? She's going on a long weekend trip this week with my brother in law. She's got a few things on her "bucket list" that I'm trying to arrange for her. She is going to be at the finish line of the Livestrong Challenge this year, which my family and I ride in her honor. I never thought last year that that would be the case, but she's fighting hard and doing pretty well, so she plans to cheer us on!

I can tell you from my experience, one thing you have to do is let the person 'get their life in order'. Don't do what I think most folks want to do, which is say "oh don't talk like that" and try and avoid it. It is sad and painful and so terribly difficult, but I always let my sister talk about the end. I've promised her I will make sure her family gets through it, I will make sure she doesn't suffer, I will do whatever she needs me to do and I let her talk about all those things. We don't dwell, but it isn't far from our minds.

I told her the first week she was diagnosed that she should live each day like she doesn't have many, while we fight with everything she, I and modern medicine have to get her more time. It becomes all about buying more time.

Not sure if that helps much, but I do feel your pain. I always figure that either way of dying (unexpected or drawn out terminal illness) have their pros and cons. The pro of this type of death is that you have no reason to have anything left unsaid. It is a small gift compared of the pain of watching someone battle for time, but try and take advantage of it.

Good luck and prayers to you and your family.