In Arabic they have a saying "InAllahi wa In Allah e Rajioon" well thats the literal phonetic translation in English it means "We belong to Allah and to Him we return" This is supposed to be said at times of calamities or death.
You know you are starting of the week well when it starts with death, and unfortunately for me I have had such a week.
I am actually surprised by how much it has affected me, but I guess when you get to know someone really well by treating them multiple times a week for many months for their medical issues, its inevitable to build a strong rapport with them. Unfortunately whats even more poignant with this case is that my patient was only one year older than me.
He died of a broken heart which is the literal translation of the Arabic into English for heart attack, but in reality I believe he really did die from a broken heart. During in his time treating me he had explained to me that he and his wife were estranged and although not divorced they had been living apart for some time and had not been able to see his two kids, and this was literally tearing him apart. He confided in me on numerous occasions that if he didn't have his wife and kids then what was the point of going on in life.
Now last Thursday (the equivalent to Friday everywhere else) I was called for a consult to the Heart hospital, yes here we have a specialized hospital just dealing with heart issues, and for most parts its very good to see him, he looked unwell, but the only thing that was on his mind was reconciling with his wife, and supposedly Thursday was the last day for any chances of reconciliation, I did advise him that he needed to stay in to get further examinations, but unfortunately I suspect he forced the issue and went home to try to reconcile things with his wife.
Now I was scheduled to see him on Sunday in my clinic and when he didn't turn up I tried to call him he didn't answer his phone so later on I tried again and still no answer, so I did find this very strange, so at this point I went back into to my medical records, to see if he had any more encounters, now at this point I wasn't surprised to see an encounter in the emergency department had been made, what I was disturbed about on reading the encounter was that he or someone had called the emergency services with a complaint of chest pain, and despite best efforts of the paramedics and emergency staff they were unable to revive him after he went into cardiac arrest. I suspect he had just given up with life and has now moved on to a better place. I know his suffering has come to an end from his medical perspective and hopefully he was able to reconcile with his wife despite being able to enjoy it for long.
It gives me some assurance in believing that we belong to Allah and we eventually all return to Him.
Until we meet again my friend.