Transitioning to Hospice

This blog post was written on February 20, 2026.

We have made the decision to move forward with hospice care for Cassidy. I’ve read that sentence over and over again, and it still doesn’t feel real.

For months, our language has been about fighting. Treatment plans. Tumor markers. Radiation schedules. Second opinions. Lab trends. We have measured time in infusions and scans and incremental changes. We have held onto numbers and possibilities and “one more round.”

And we did fight. He fought harder than anyone should ever have to.

But over the past weeks, it has become painfully clear that his body is tired. The treatments that once held promise are now taking more than they are giving. The labs aren’t stabilizing, markers continue to rise, his strength has steadily declined, and the reality in front of us is not the one we hoped for.

Choosing hospice was not a moment. It was a series of conversations. Quiet ones. Tearful ones. Conversations with doctors. Conversations with family. Conversations in hospital rooms where the weight of the future pressed in on us.

And then conversations with myself. Because choosing hospice feels like stepping out of the arena. It feels like laying down armor you’ve been wearing for so long you forgot how heavy it was. But hospice is not giving up.

Hospice is choosing comfort over chaos. It’s choosing peace over procedures and dignity over one more attempt that his body may not survive.

It is choosing him.

I need to say that again — maybe more for me than for anyone reading this.

We are not stopping care, we are shifting the goal of care.

Instead of fighting for more time at any cost, we are protecting the time we have. We are prioritizing comfort, pain management, rest. We are making sure that his days are as gentle as they can be. That he is surrounded by love instead of machines and alarms.

There is a strange kind of heartbreak in this decision. It feels like grieving while he is still here. It feels like trying to accept something my heart still wants to argue with. Part of me wants to say, “What if one more treatment works?” Another part of me knows what his body is telling us.

The words in this post aren’t just for those of you reading it, they’r for me.

They are me trying to steady myself. Trying to believe that loving him now means releasing him from more suffering. Trying to convince myself that comfort is not defeat. That peace is not surrender.

I don’t know what the coming days or weeks will hold. Hospice doesn’t come with a timeline. It comes with presence. With support. With nurses who focus on easing symptoms. With guidance through something none of us ever feel ready for.

We are not done loving. We are not done being together. We are not done fighting for his comfort, his dignity, and his peace. The fight just looks different now.

If you’ve walked alongside us through this journey, thank you. If you continue to hold us in your thoughts, prayers, or quiet love, please know we feel it. Right now, we are focusing on the simplest and hardest thing, being together.

And I am learning that sometimes, that is the bravest choice of all.