I once made a promise to a young boy with half a heart. I could not keep it.
“Am I going to die?”
There was a mixture of fear and pain in my patient’s eyes. He was a second grader but had already survived three major heart surgeries. Now he had pneumonia and was struggling to breathe. We were about to intubate him.
“You’re a strong guy,” I whispered to him as his mother held his hand and sobbed. “We’ll get you through this.”
He died two days later.
I drove home …
