Why 'lost their battle' with serious illness is the wrong thing to say
When a dire disease strikes, it's easy to slip into war terms to describe the experience. But that sort of talk turns life into two outcomes: winning and losing. And that's not the way life works.
The family of Jimmy Carter last week announced that the former president, a cancer survivor who had been in the hospital for undisclosed reasons, was heading home for hospice care.
That means those tending him will not take extraordinary measures to prolong his life, but will instead try to minimize pain and provide peace of mind in his last days.
Carter's decision offers a startling contrast to the way serious illness is often characterized when people face a medical crisis.
The word of choice in many media stories and in conversations among family, friends and co-workers is "battle."
In mid-February the family of the actor Bruce Willis revealed that Willis is now in a .
