I'm a broken mess right now.

A patient of ours, and she was most definitely "ours" as in my entire unit, died yesterday morning.

With the patient population I work with, death is something we're very acquainted with.  You don't work with lung transplant patients and not deal with death.  And this death isn't the first I've had.  We've had several long time patients die.  Yet each one hurts as if it were the first.  We spend long hours doing everything we can to make these people comfortable and try to heal them.  We share our lives with them to help them not feel disconnected with the outside world, we meet and get to know their spouses, children,  grandchildren, their likes and dislikes.  We hear their stories of childhood and share our own.  We make things for them, bring them books and snacks, we learn what they enjoy and provide it.  We hold their hands when their afraid, sit with and hug them when they cry, we hum and sing when they're anxious.  We become apart of their support system.  They become apart of us.  And we ache when they lose the battle.

This patient.  She had a difficult road.  I was there when she first came to us and no one knew anything about her.  I saw the transformation of her and her husband from fear of a new hospital and staff to complete trust and kinship in that we would do anything to make her better.  We celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary.  And her birthday.  We played with her kids and got to know her parents.  She quickly went from a new patient to a much cared about friend.  We loved her.

We were afraid she wouldn't get the lungs she needed.  We saw her get transferred to the ICU because she was getting weaker.  And we rejoiced when she came back to us.  There was a real fear that she wouldn't get lungs because of her diverse heritage, but it was with much excitement that she got both necessary calls Sunday saying they found lungs for her.  Monday morning she was wheeled off the unit with lots of well wishes and shouts of prayers as we got ready for the 18 hour wait hearing how the surgery went.

And she died.

I don't know if it's even possible for me to cry anymore.  My heart aches for her husband and her precious babies.  They're so young.  I'm afraid in five years they won't remember her face or her immeasurable love for them.  I can't wrap my brain around this.  Why her?  Why not the brain dead patient who is only alive because of a ventilator?  Why one so young with so much to live for?