some sad news

I just found out that one of the patients that I took care of about a month ago died. That's always a little weird for me, but this is worse than usual because this patient was still a teenager. He was hit by a drunk driver and suffered from a traumatic brain injury. Usually we get these types of patients well enough to go to a brain rehab program, which is exactly what happened in this case. From there, I'm not sure what happens to them, but honestly, I like to think that some of them get better and start to be able to function in some capacity again. This particular patient made me really sad. He had so much potential...had just turned 18 years old and been accepted to college. I watched his mother sit by his bed every day and talk to him about everything that was going on at home and how he had to wake up to see it. We watched him really closely together and would have hopeful conversations about things like "ooh, he's really moving that left arm today" and "I really think he just followed me with his eyes!". His sister would crawl into the bed with him in the afternoon and the whole family would just sit there, watching tv, every once in awhile talking directly to the patient and asking him questions. This perfect family got ripped apart because one idiot decided to run a stop sign. This could have been MY brother. Could have been someone I knew. You know, they teach you a lot of things in nursing school, but never once do they mention that you will grieve for your patients. They don't tell you how it feels to be talking to a person one minute, and the next minute to be doing CPR on them. They completely left out how to deal with a job where people are going to die, where sometimes you are going to have to WATCH them die. They never told me that I would be expected to hold the hand of a dying woman and whisper to her that it was ok to let go. And I was never taught how to cope with a job where 18 year olds can senselessly die. Yet here I am. And whether or not I always feel prepared to deal with these things, in this job I don't have much choice.