Estoy triste.

He had flown off his motorcycle and been impaled on a guardrail in such a way that it entered through the chest gone past the diaphragm into the abdomen and transacted bowel. I saw him everyday for a month, the vast majority of which he was in the ICU and unconscious. There were multiple wounds, both from the chest and the abdomen. We were responsible for the chest wound, tubes and drains, which at one point were quite numerous. By the time the month had ended, and my rotation had ended, he was finally out of the ICU, tubes were out, drains were out and what remained was a nicely healing wound wrapped around his anterior and lateral chest. He was one of those rare trauma patients who was nice and a positive individual. Even after they had rotated off the service my students would tell me how they would go and visit him, just to say hi and see how he was doing. I thought it was cute, and encouraged it. I would have liked to go see him as well, but on nights, if I have time its usually at 2-3am and not really appropriate for a social visit. Then one day, my co-resident told me he was finally being discharged the following day, and... that he was mad at me. By sending that message to me, it was the type of message where he wasn't really mad, but at the same time was being honest that he would have appreciated the visit. I put it on my to do list that night, and then of course the night goes from hectic to crazy to worse. It finally ends, without a visit squeezed in and he is discharged.

I'm pretty sure I will always regret not getting to him to say goodbye and good luck that one last time.  Not only had he remembered me, but remembered me by name, and what I had helped him with. I can assure you that chest wound was not exactly minor, and taking care of it had caused him pain on more than one occasion. It was a pretty sick place that we had helped him navigate through, and it took a long time, but he made it. Those patient's see so many personnel during their time in the hospital, it is rather rare when we residents are actually remembered. Wish I could have granted him that simple request of a visit to say goodbye.

Much Love.