From the time my late wife Bonnie went on dialysis in June, 1994, until her death in August, 2006, she appeared to be on a series of plateaus followed by downward slopes. Only after her death did I learn that she had been on a downward slope all along. I was her home caregiver during that time. Nothing in the then current treatment stopped the decline. First she began to go blind. Loss of both lower legs followed. The hospital called her treatment “compassionate.”