...

Billy died in the early hours of Thursday morning, the night after my last night shift taking care of him. After a conference with his doctors, his family made the decision to withdraw life support and place him on comfort care measures. He was extubated and died peacefully on a morphine drip with his family at his side. He was 25. I will remember the floppy blond hair and the wry grin from the photo above his bed rather than the war-torn body he left in the ICU bed.

I am sad and feel strangely guilty that I wasn't there. I never met his mother, just spoke to her on the phone each night I was his nurse.

I haven't even cried yet but last night I had three patients who needed their nurse to crack jokes with them, sigh in empathy at their pains and complaints, and make sure they got their antiobiotics on time. And we march on...