Many of the nurses at Weiss are young and nice and attractive, but my favorite was Cynthia, who was not particularly young nor spectacularly attractive. Cynthia was the first ICU nurse at Weiss that I got to know last year. She was quick with a laugh and a hearty, "Hello, young man!" and made me feel comfortable even when taking care of sick post-op CABG patients. She was the first one to welcome me back this year, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary for the first month or so. I hadn't seen her around for the last few weeks, even though we had had a couple of heart patients during that time, but I'd just assumed that she was on vacation or something.

After I came out of the last case today, Aisha told me that there was some pizza in the resident room. I asked her where she got it, and she told me that, Pat, one of the nurse practitioners, brought it to try to cheer everyone up after the news of Cynthia's passing.

"What?"

A few weeks ago, Cynthia was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer. It progressed quickly and word came that she died today.

The patient population at Weiss is heavy with older nursing home types, so chronic illness, hospice, and death are fairly common issues, but this...

Cynthia, now who is going to take care of all the broken hearts you left?