What 'The Pitt' star Katherine LaNasa wishes about her past

You know Katherine LaNasa as the tough and caring nurse Dana Evans on HBO's "The Pitt." In real life, she's needed to be just as nurturing to loved ones at the end of their lives.

That included ex-husband and her son's father, actor Dennis Hopper, who died in 2010. "I was actually good at it," the Emmy winner tells USA TODAY at the EndWell Summit – a conference on death and dying for caregivers, clinicians and grief advocates. She was there to watch a football game, play cards or read while Hopper slept. You think you need to have the right thing to say. But one of their most meaningful conversations was when he shared how scared he was as he battled cancer. She said she'd be scared too.

She realized later she should've had grief counseling. "I was really in grief and very, very sad for a very long time," she says. "A lot of times, deaths from an illness that goes on for months can be very, very sad to watch. And I was really filled with a lot of sadness, not just of the loss of the person, but the whole experience was really sad... And you know, when someone doesn't want to die and they're dying, (it's) really, really hard."

She's glad that EndWell, the non-profit behind the conference, worked with "The Pitt" on creating a meaningful and realistic dialogue about end-of-life care. On the show, a pair of adult children struggle with letting a parent go and it impacts his care. If we talk more about end-of-life wishes, we can make better decisions in tough scenarios.

Not all moments as someone dies are sad, though. LaNasa recalled (during a panel discussion at the conference) laughing as she sat with her dying grandmother. LaNasa would pour her heart out, and her grandma would respond with something completely off topic. It's OK to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

"Being available and being real and just being present with people is, in and of itself, a gift for people that are suffering," LaNasa adds.

When she faced her own breast cancer journey a few years ago, she learned how "the little things really matter, the little gestures – we're all so sensitive – and someone just going that extra mile with you really can often matter a lot when you're that vulnerable." She's feeling healthy now two years since her surgery, but it wasn't always rosy.

"You just start to feel like your disease is a zombie and you can't kill it, and is it ever going to get better?" she says. "And that's really when a nurse came in that really helped me and then explained to me that her sister-in-law had just had cancer, and that the first six months after cancer are really bumpy, and that this wouldn't necessarily continue. I owe a lot to that nurse."

Viewers can say the same for those honest conversations on "The Pitt."

The reporter on this story received access to these services from EndWell. USA TODAY maintains editorial control of content.

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