A few days ago, I met a 35 year old man who told me that he had lost 37 family members in the last few years. He was the seventh born of 14 children and every single one of his siblings had died. A paramedic turned into sea captain and business owner with a zest for life but also a detachment to loss and a dark sense of humour. His youngest brother died from suicide at 14.

As we talked, I contemplated how many of us on this journey called life, felt drawn into the health sphere to make a difference to the lives of others and he told me that he left the medical field, when confronted by the harsh reality of drug abusers not only coming in to hospital in need of help after overdosing but attacking staff members and while it was great to be saving people who were hurt in car accidents, he found himself in a position where he no longer cared and that's when he decided it was time to leave the profession and start over, finding not only work he loved but that paid considerably more.

As we were talking, a phone call came in from his flat mate about someone they knew who was hospitalised for sepsis and he answered in a very matter of fact way without emotion and he turned to me afterwards and said, that person was either going to live or die, he's got dementia anyway and we