Life is too short

A co-worker of mine will likely die tonight. He's about 32. He always partied and drank pretty hard, and that may be what did this.

I was on vacation last week, so didn't know much about what was going on, but it seems not a lot of people at work didn't know much either. I saw a Facebook post about it Monday, but didn't find out how serious it was until Tuesday afternoon.

He was sick all last week and went into the hospital Saturday. At some point, by Monday at least, they put him in a coma, as his kidneys were failing. And then every time his sister posted an update on his FB wall, it got worse and worse: His intestines weren't working, his pancreas and liver were both failing. Blood pressure extremely low and blood work all over the place. A surgeon saw him, but he was too unstable to move out of ICU.

This morning, they gave him last rites. But they also opened up his abdomen, right in the ICU because they still couldn't move him, to relieve pressure and clean out his intestines. His sister this afternoon said they hoped it would help his blood flow, but they could see how damaged his pancreas and enlarged his liver was.

Then about an half hour or so ago, I checked his wall, and it was full of farewell messages. I finally found the post from his sister. All his organs are shutting down, and they don't expect him to last the night.

I wouldn't say Matt was a friend of mine, but he could always make me laugh. He was the guy everyone went to when they needed to know something — where something was, how to do something on the computer, whatever. He was the go-to guy at work.

He was raised Catholic, but he was also an ordained minister off the Internet and performed marriages and even funerals. For a biker wedding he performed on Halloween, he dressed as Charlie Manson. Another Halloween, he was Jesus. He wrote and played music.

He's a great guy. I hope the doctors are wrong and he holds on.

ETA: Update from his sister at about 9:30 is that he is "fighting like hell"! Hoping it's the start of good news.