Sandwiched between REL (90) and JRB (75) on the obituary page is Mr. Patient (29 - MP). His youthful face smiling clearly stands out on this page. Young and handsome, his picture forms a sharp foil to the older, more dated and worn faces he is now surrounded by. MP was a patient I took care of after his twenty-day ICU stay. He was a patient that I discharged home on hospital day #42. He was a patient that I had managed through home nurses for weeks, trying to get him to come in to the clinic. And then, through a PICC line that I had ordered placed – and with medicines I prescribed – he killed himself. And now all that remains is a half-dozen paragraphs glossing over his life.
He was only a few months older than I am.
