I'll miss you, Lady

Patients die. It's part of life and medical practice.

But last week one of my favorite patients died, and I'll miss her.

Due to shit luck she's been in a wheelchair for the last 15 years with a serious neurological disease. It made her suffer constantly from pain. When a freak accident cost her an eye 10 years ago, she accepted it as the crap it was, and went on with her life. She never once filed for disability. And in spite of this she was always cheerful.

I saw her every few months. Not that I really had much to offer her, but she came in to see if anything new was out. And when I said no, she accepted it with grace. I told her she didn't need to come back for a year, but she'd always be back sooner. Over the years our appointments became as much social visits as they were medical. So we'd chat about shoes and ships and ceiling wax.

She knew about this blog, one of a handful of patients who does. She'd been through so many doctors and tests and treatments that she loved to laugh at the insanity of modern medicine. She'd always joke with me that she was looking for herself on it, but I told her she'd never given me anything to write about.

And so it seems fitting, that, in dying, she finally ended up here.

She went to Local Hospital ER for pain 2 nights ago, and they sent her for a CT scan. While in the machine, she died. The code team worked on her for an hour in radiology, and couldn't get her back.

I learned of her death yesterday, and went over to read the chart, to see what happened. I was reading through the Code Blue note. Which ended with this line:

"After being pronounced dead, the patient was returned to ER for further evaluation and treatment."

Good night, Lady, wherever you are.