After watching so many elderly patients with advanced chronic diseases or who were terminally ill go through painful, aggressive life-sustaining treatments that did not change the outcome, but only prolonged death, I decided to write this book to try and educate the public about what they can do to help ensure their end-of-life care is the way they want it to be. It is my hope this book will open your eyes to the limits of our bodies and of medicine, and to give you a more realistic expectation of what both can and cannot do.