At a dying man’s bedside, I see something much rarer than grief: the courage to include the young

‘I don’t know what the family knows and the margin for error is small, so my explanation is layered,’ Ranjana Srivastava writes. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA

I am not especially superstitious but it tends to be a Friday afternoon when the collective mass of the hospital shudders to the realisation that the weekend is upon us and important questions are unanswered.

My patient is a man in his early 70s who has kept deteriorating after major cancer surgery two weeks ago. Instead of the progressive recovery he was told to expect, he has grown worse. Now he looks listless, with dismal blood pressure and failing kidneys.