Punch in the stomach

My patient died.

When I was doing my medical rotation, I used to have a blase attitude towards death - RVD cases were dying left right and centre in the medical wards, it was weird not to have to sign burial permits when I was oncall.

I've not had a patient die for a long time now; working in the district usually means that you ship off all your risky cases for the tertiary centre to manage. BID (brought in dead) cases are usually uncomplicated and straightforward.

Perhaps it was because I sat up all night taking care of this case - even telling my houseman to get some sleep because it would be stupid for both of us to be awake and if I left her to take care of the patient and something bad happened, it'd be on me anyway, and I wouldn't be able to sleep from worrying anyway, so I might as well be the one up.

Perhaps it was because I had gotten irritated because he kept asking for water (must have been the hypovolaemia) and we kept telling him that he can't. He was making jokes about how the blood transfusion was going poorly because we refused him his drink.

*sigh*

I keep replaying that night over and over and over in my mind trying to find where it is that I have gone wrong. Anything I could have done that could have prevented this. Yes, I have been told by my boss that injuries that he had, meant a very poor survival rate and that I shouldn't feel bad but I feel bad anyway.

Damn. One would think that one would get used to death after working for some time but once in a while it sure does hit you right in the stomach.