Imagine being 31. Imagine being diagnosed with cancer. Imagine it spreading and taking over your body. Imagine going to one of the best hospitals in the nation filled with hope. Trying one chemotherapy regimen. And then the next. And then the next. And then the next. Imagine your body and your cancer rejecting all of them and running out of options. Imagine your doctors—experts in their field and your final hope—telling you that the medicine is making you too sick and isn’t working. The cancer is progressing. Imagine having fought enough battles for a lifetime. Imagine realizing that the cancer has outrun your race. Imagine knowing that time is running out. Imagine knowing that it is time to count the weeks and hope for months.

Imagine being divorced. Having two kids under the age of 8. Imagine your ex-husband moving to another state. Imagine being the backbone of your family of three.

Imagine being so gripped with pain that you cannot eat. You cannot think. You cannot function. You cannot sleep.

Now imagine it all: Being 31 with lung cancer that has spread all over your body that pulses with pain. Being told that it was time to plan your final days and not knowing how to tell your kids as a single parent.

Can you imagine? It cripples me to do so.

But I opened the door and I didn’t just imagine it, I met her. This was her story. Matter-of-fact. Her eyes steadied on mine. Every muscle relaxed.

She had a plan. In three days, she was flying back to her home country. She was leaving this life before it could leave her. I don’t pretend to know the path she has walked to come to this decision, with her bags packed on the side, ready to step away on these legs that have stood steady when every corner has closed in on her.

I flipped through page after page of medical records. I read about her pain. I read about her decline. I read about the age of her children. I read about her ex-husband living states away. I read about how her parents were deceased. I didn’t ask too many questions. This was not the time for too many questions.

I begged her to stay in the hospital. Her physical pain was too great to handle alone. Her pain was something we could help her with. She couldn’t just step away just yet. It wasn’t time to be alone. I circled back to her room in our Emergency Department three times. The third time, she nodded her head.

Today she should have flown home, leaving her American life behind her. She is still in the hospital. I am another face in hundreds that crossed her path in this final fleeting countdown that no one should have to imagine. I know she won’t have long, but that should not stop us from being her advocate. Every day she continues is another day we continue to treat her however we can. She may be living by the day, but we will be alongside her to re-invision these unimaginable days.