today I learnt that this patient I saw on quite a few occasions to take a history, do an examination or sometimes just simply stopping by and having a chat and see how he was improving had died 2 days ago.
On the first day of my INfectious Diseases rotation, he was a very sick looking man who had just come out of a valve repair procedure, as a result of bacterial endocarditis. He was barely able to speak coherently and was vaguely aware of where he was. As the days went my, he got better, starting eating better, was slowly able to walk on his own without any aids and in a week or 2 he was looking well on the road of recovery. I must have gone by to seen him around 5 times, which dosent seem alot, but when you compare that to the average number of times medical students see patients its 5x as many.
so this afternoon, I overheard my ID resident speaking to the nurses about what happened and was pretty shocked to hear the news. It is really quite saddening to see a young man who was planning to turn his life around after the disease go just like that, in a finger snap*. What happened??? A ruptured spleen, from multiple emboli that caused multiple infarcts in the spleen. and simply bled to death internally.
oh well such is life, and he will probably be one of many people i shall be seeing in my career as a doctor but he'll probably be the one I will always remember.
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