Lost My First Patient. God this is hard....

My patient, Steve, passed away this morning. Sorry for the sad message. But this is the first patient that I've lost. Steve was the best patient in the world to visit. My mom made him this get well card (pictures of it below) yesterday that we were going to give him tomorrow after our Pediatrics visit. We never got to give it to him. I only saw him two days ago and he seemed to be doing fine. Sickness can do that, though. It never really reveals its ugly head. And we never really know what is wrong with someone when we visit them. And we don't ask. I know it's a hard lesson to learn. My mom is really upset. But I know the times we shared together with Steve and his wife Joyce were special. We lifted their spirits and took their minds off the sad moments about to come. He obviously was much sicker than he looked, but we didn't know that. I just hung with him and put my head on his chest or stomach. And the last visit, which was on Wednesday, he was sitting in a big chair beside the bed, smiling with both legs up, crossed with his feet resting on the bed, so the only way I could touch him was to curl up and put my head on his feet/ankle area, so that's what I did. And he LOVED it. He was singing to me...."Josie! Josie!" as he fed me a whole bag of treats! We had a great visit and I got to meet his daughter Kelly. (she's really pretty!) I waved "Good-Bye" to him and my mom kissed him good-bye and we said we would see him on Saturday. Well, we actually said we'd see him tomorrow, meaning Thursday, but then we got a call from Joyce on Thursday saying he was rushed into ICU for a Biopsy early Thursday morning. So when I spoke with Joyce Thursday afternoon, she said to hold off on our visit and come visit him on Saturday after our Pediatric visit. My mom called today to see how he was doing and that's when we got the sad news. Like I said, my mom is really upset. But I tell her to focus on the good times. And that his family was probably a lot more prepared for his passing than we were. God Speed Steve! I'm glad we got to meet you. Now you get to be with all your Furbabies that went to the Rainbow Bridge. We love you and are going to miss you more than you know. Much Love. We love you!