Personal Perspective: Artificial intelligence gave me clarity to face what was coming.
My dad was in the emergency room, short of breath, chest tight, upper back aching. He looked pale and confused. An ultrasound showed excess fluid between his lung and chest wall.
“We’ll drain it,” a resident said, as if he were unclogging a sink.
For the next five days, thick, red-tinged fluid filled a plastic container beside my dad’s hospital bed. His cells were sent for “staining,” a way to identify cancer. But no one used that word.
Nurses rotated through, drawing smiley faces next to their names on a white board when they switched shifts. Doctors discussed biopsies and blood thinners and mentioned malignancy in a relentlessly relaxed tone. Their manner didn’t match what I saw.
Breakfast remained untouched at lunch. And a cough that was a minor nuisance had become big enough to break a rib.
“What’s your pain level today?” the pulmonologist asked.
“It was a four,” my dad said. “Now it’s a six.”
Tylenol wasn’t cutting it. The doctor suggested morphine.
“We keep treating symptoms,” my dad questioned, “but what’s the cause?”
“Hopefully it’s an infection,” the doctor said. “We’ll try antibiotics.”
But my father didn’t have a fever.
When death is a dirty word
After nearly a week in the hospital, a resident casually mentioned that my dad had malignant epithelial cells. I called the doctor in charge.
“He has cancer,” she confirmed, “but we don’t know which kind.”
The pulmonologists didn’t talk about cancer. Oncologists hadn't been consulted because pathology needed more time to make a definitive diagnosis. And I didn’t know I should ask for palliative care.
My dad was discharged. But a few days later, he returned with blood clots, breathing difficulty, and intense pain. I approached the doctor coordinating his care.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Is my dad dying?”
“His vitals are stable,” he said, “but I’m not an oncologist.”
The clots were treated with a blood thinner. A scan confirmed that the fluid was gone. The team recommended around-the-clock oxygen and a follow-up appointment.
On paper, things looked better. But my dad wasn’t reassured.
"Can you find out what's really happening?" he asked me.
The turning point
I’m a journalist and know how to get information. But in the hospital, I froze. When I asked questions, doctors looked down or hurried away. Information was rationed, not shared, and I felt myself shrinking. I became careful. If I pushed too hard, I might alienate the people who controlled my father’s care.
I needed a different source. So, I tried AI. The computer didn’t flinch.
I’m sorry you and your dad are going through this. I’ll keep this clear and compassionate. A malignant pleural effusion means it’s stage IV disease (metastatic).
I exhaled. AI explained what to expect. It wasn’t medical advice. It was information grounded in the science of dying. My confusion gave way to something unexpected: comfort.
My experience made sense to Arthur Dobrin, a professor emeritus at Hofstra University who served on a hospital ethics committee. Most doctors, he explained, aren’t trained to talk about terminal diagnoses. They’re human, and their own feelings get in the way.
“A computer program doesn’t have emotions,” Dobrin said. “It doesn’t fear death or failure.”
AI delivered clarity and that gave me courage.
“Dad, this is serious,” I said. “Do you want to discuss the reality? It might be hard to handle.”
“That’s OK. I’m 87. I’ve lived a full life," he said. "If I’m dying, I want to figure out how to manage it.”
We didn’t have to pretend this was a temporary crisis. We started treating it like what it was: the final chapter of a beautiful life.
The gift of clear sight
We met with a soft-spoken, thoughtful oncologist who explained that my dad had advanced lung cancer. Treatments could extend his life, but with side effects, frequent visits, and a shift in focus.
My father didn’t think that treatments made sense.
“My life is complete,” he said. “I want to feel more comfortable and spend whatever time I have left with the people I love.”
I asked about life expectancy. The doctor hesitated.
“We don’t know the details,” he said. But I wasn’t asking for an advanced lesson. I needed an orientation.
Later, AI delivered.
Being prepared is an act of love. Would you like me to outline signs that he may be entering the final weeks and days of life?
We called hospice and set up a hospital bed. Pain eased, and my father’s spirit returned. He was curious, present, and engaged. Dying became something we lived, not just endured.
That shift is central to good end-of-life care, said Dr. Dawn Gross, a hospice and palliative care physician whose focus is patients with serious illness. “Death is one of the most profound, life-changing experiences for patients and families. Why are we putting it behind closed doors?”
I didn’t want my dad to die. He was my go-to for life advice, bad jokes, and deep discussions. He taught me how to show up in the world. To treat hard moments as plot twists.
Knowing his timeline let us navigate. We could see what mattered. And we lived a lifetime in the moments we had.
Accepting loss and feeling whole
My father loved family dinners at six, the Sunday crossword, Yankee playoff games, art nouveau, and anything written by Thomas Pynchon or Oliver Sacks. He was a scientist who had built rockets for NASA, but also wanted to know what made people tick. Dinner conversations moved from the physics of flight to the ethics of kindness.
Steve Diamond faced death the way he lived: with clarity and endless curiosity.
“Dying is interesting,” he said between doses of morphine. “I didn’t know what to expect. I kept my mind open. And it doesn’t feel so constraining.”
My dad was unshackled. We followed his lead.
Friends and family filled his bedroom. My mother spread six decades of family photographs across their bed, like a quilt stitched from memory: birthdays, family trips, and ordinary days that meant everything. We passed the photos hand to hand, fingers lingering. We traced life’s chapters like a road map toward my father’s final destination.
His words grew fewer. Ours mattered more.
“You’ve helped me every step of the way,” I told him, holding his hand. “Thank you for all of it, Dad, I love you.”
Morphine came more often. Water was swallowed from a spoon. Time expanded, marked by longer stretches of silence and sleep.
One morning near the end, my dad wanted to talk about his death.
“This is such a different experience,” he said. “I’ve had to adapt and learn so many new things. I know I’m weak. But I feel strong.”
He paused.
“I’m ready,” he said. “Thanks for helping me manage this. It feels important.”
“I love you.”
Epilogue
Seven weeks after my dad went to the emergency room, he died. Only later did we realize that his earlier symptoms — back pain and a bad cough — were actually signs of adenocarcinoma, not just aging.
“We don’t know when the end of someone’s life actually begins,” said Dr. Scott Halpern, a physician and professor at the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in palliative and hospice care. He trains clinicians to guide patients and their families through difficult conversations and consequential, end-of-life decisions.
“Good care for the dying must start earlier,” he added.
We didn’t need to be protected from the truth. We wanted to face it. And once we knew what we were dealing with, my dad didn’t retreat. He leaned in. Made choices. We embraced closure and felt the profound gift of presence, love, and a truly meaningful goodbye.
Editor's Note: This article was originally published on Psychology Today and is republished here with permission of Becky Diamond. Becky Diamond clarified to Digital Information World that she used AI only for editing after writing the piece herself, not for creating its content. AI can provide general explanations but does not replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Readers are encouraged to consult experienced healthcare professionals for personal medical concerns.
