:(

"I've got a good and a bad news to tell you. Which one do you want to listen first?"
"The bad one"
"Number 13 died."
"What? How? Why?"
An unimaginable number of questions crossed my mind. If it was the 14 I would understand. Yesterday, he wasn’t pretty well. But the 13?! I evaluated him yesterday, and though I hadn’t seen him before, since I was on holidays, he looked good, his blood tests were better than never, his renal function, liver function... everything! My boss even had a 10 min argument with him, because he wanted to leave yesterday. It was a bit hard to convince him that it was better to stay till today so that we could make a paracentesis and then discharge him, though if he wanted he was free to go at his own risk.
When I heard the news, it had just happened the minutes before I arrived at the hospital. I and my colleague double checked his blood tests, and other exams looking for some clue, in order to understand what happened. Then we looked up in the internet about the adverse effects of TIPS. And it was there... I know he had a severe liver disease. I know he was old. I know he had other underlying diseases. But...
I was so sad. It was the first time a patient died. Well, I know it happens everyday, but I never got that close to this feeling. The others who died I didn’t know them. Either because they entered and died during the weekend, or I was not close.
While I was searching the internet, I heard the nurse calling home and tell the news to his wife. She was so cold. She probably does that everyday, and has done that hundreds of times in her life. I think I’ll never get used to those words.
Listening to her saying "I don’t have good news. Your husband died... So if you want you can come here and take his belongings. Come whenever you want. Sorry.", reminded of my godfather.
My mother called me saying "Your godmother got ´the` call."
"Sorry? Which call?"
"... from the hospital."
"What call from the hospital?" I said without understanding what she meant.
"Your godfather died."
And just like that, people die.
My life was not the same. I’ll remember him for the rest of my life, at least one day per year - our birthday! The 25th of July!
God bless you, wherever you may be.

P.S. Mika, this one was to fullfil your wishes!

*Names of the patients are not used on purpose