I was 20 then. It was just a few months before graduation, when I would have become a full-fledged adult with a bachelor’s degree in nursing. But for the moment I was focusing on being a good student nurse.

It was our first day in our clinical duty at the emergency room. We were on the morning shift, so we had a busy start. One of my assigned patients was a young male just a few years shy of 30, with the diagnosis of meningitis.

He was just one of the many patients I tended in the whole four years of my student-nurse days. But I remember him so well, and I don’t think I will ever forget him.