Chicken Soup for the Nurse's Soul Read online

  Freddie quickly contrived a plan. “I’ll make a deal with you, Mr. Jackson. I’ll give you this pin if you will eat something off every tray we bring you.”

  “No, Ma’am, I couldn’t take it. I just want to touch it. That’s the prettiest pin I’ve ever seen.”

  “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll pin it to a pillow and put it next to you. You can keep it until my shift ends, but only if you will eat something off every tray I bring you.”

  “Yes, Ma’am, I’ll do what you say.”

  When Freddie came to check his lunch tray, she found him thoughtfully stroking the pin. He turned to her and said, “I kept my promise, look.” He had eaten a few bites off his tray. They were making progress.

  When her shift ended, Freddie dropped in on Mr. Jackson and said, “I’m off for the next two days, but I’ll come by here first thing when I get back.”

  His eyebrows drew together in a small frown, and he lowered his head.

  Freddie quickly added, “I want you to keep this pin and your promise while I’m gone.”

  He brightened a little, but forlornness still hung heavily in the room.

  “Mr. Jackson, think about all you have to be grateful for—your children and grandchildren, to start with,” she encouraged. “Those grandbabies need their grandfather. Why, who else will tell them about their wonderful grandmother?” She patted his hand and hoped for a miracle.

  When Freddie returned, “amazing,” was the evening nurse’s appraisal. Freddie smiled and went to check Mr. Jackson’s vitals.

  “There’s my angel nurse,” he happily exclaimed.

  “It sure is, and I’ve missed you,” she replied, noticing the lovely woman who stood next to his bed.

  “This is my daughter. She is taking me to live with her,” he said. “I’m gonna tell those grandkids of mine story after story.” He looked at Freddie and smiled. “I’m gonna tell them about the angel who took care of their grandpa, too.”

  Now, Mr. Jackson wanted to live. And live he did, thanks to an angel made of silver and gold, and one made of kindness and mercy.

  Linda Apple

  Will She Ever Smile Again?

  I stare quietly at the purple, swollen little face that lies in sharp contrast to the crisp whiteness of the pillow. Her eyes are closed. She lies sleeping. As I silently tend to her care, I despair that she may never smile again, let alone laugh and run with friends.

  Her world has been shattered, violently beaten by a person whose job it should have been to love and protect her. Her innocence is lost. For four days she lays quietly in this hospital bed, not speaking, not moving, just silently watching those around her. Her mother sleeps on the makeshift bed beside her.

  Satisfied that she is resting comfortably, I move to leave, when her eyes flicker open. Two sad, little brown slits appear, and her gaze moves about the room, coming to rest on me. She says nothing, just silently watches. I greet her by name and remind her of mine, then chat quietly with her about the beautiful day that lies outside her darkened room. As I have for the last four days, I make little jokes and chat happily about different things as I tend her. Keeping eye contact with her, I smile and carry on with the conversation, not really expecting her to reply.

  I am aware that outside this room my many other responsibilities pile up. The ward is extremely busy, and I have other children and families in my care. I should be moving on, but I am drawn to this silent, sad little girl and her unspoken needs.

  Quietly, I begin to bathe her eyes and motionless face, hoping to soothe and heal more than just the swollen and discolored flesh. Eventually time moves on, and I explain to her that I need to go, but that I will be back shortly to see her. I make sure she can reach her bell and explain to her that she can ring it if she wants me for anything before I return. I share a last little joke with her about the kitten I know she has at home and turn to put away my equipment.

  Then I hear it. I slowly turn back to her. What was that sound? Had it come from her? I find it hard to believe my own ears, but there again she gives a tiny, almost inaudible . . . giggle.

  I stand in shock as her remaining crooked little teeth appear in the tiniest, most beautiful smile I have ever seen.

  “What’s your name again?” she whispers.

  Quietly, I sit down beside her and take her hand. I whisper my name.

  “Will you be my nurse tomorrow?”

  I smile and tell her I would really love that. Happy with my answer, she settles back down on her pillow and dozes back off to sleep.

  As I watch her, I notice her face seems softer, more peaceful somehow. A tiny smile still plays on her battered lips—or is it my imagination now? Tears run down my face as I quietly slip out the door.

  The healing has begun.

  Ana Wehipeihana

  6

  MIRACLES

  A miracle is a work exceeding the power of any created agent, consequently being an effect of the divine omnipotence.

  Robert South

  “Can I get continuing education credit for stories that never cease to amaze me?”

  Reprinted by permission of Benita Epstein.

  Stormy Delivery

  It was just an ordinary day. I had tucked our three children in for their naps, fully realizing I needed it more than they did. Plopping into the overstuffed chair, I rubbed my tummy. Only three more weeks and I’d cradle our baby in my arms, not my belly. I whispered, “I can hardly wait.” Then I glanced out the window at the blizzard conditions and amended that statement.

  I massaged my abdomen again, this time to rub away a subtle uterine twinge. It’s nothing, I told myself. The doctor had checked me just the day before and my cervix hadn’t dilated a bit. The slight twinges gnawed at me. My first labor was only five hours. My second, just one and a half. My third tied that record. The doctors expected number four to break it. That’s why I’d been instructed to call at the earliest sign of labor—that and the fact that I lived forty minutes from the hospital.

  As I watched the snow pile higher on the streets, something else gnawed at me. I called my husband Del at work and told him about the twinges. “It’s probably nothing, but I think I’ll call the office and go in for a checkup before the storm gets too bad. If this isn’t early labor, the kids and I will just have dinner with my mom.”

  Tanya, the office nurse was wonderful as always. She always validated my concerns, though I suspect many of them were unwarranted. In her usual, supportive fashion, she agreed with my cautious plan. So I woke the kids and paraded them to the car, ragged blankets in tow. We inched through the swirling snowstorm for seven miles before the first contraction seized my abdomen. In two minutes, a second contraction—then a third—then a fourth, each more intense, bending me over the steering wheel. The baby’s head pressed forcefully down the birth canal. Panicked and pain-stricken, I looked into the rearview mirror at my children, huddled in the back seat.

  To six-year-old Timmy I said, “If something goes wrong and our baby comes, you’ll have to help Mommy catch it.

  “And Danika,” I wheezed to my four-year-old daughter, “you just press on the horn and don’t stop until somebody comes to help us.”

  Three-year-old Taylor sat bravely, waiting for her job. “Sweetie, you must sit very still and be quiet.”

  All three of them followed Taylor’s assignment, when they watched my hands grip the wheel as I labored through my Lamaze breathing.

  By the time we approached the interstate on-ramp, I knew I couldn’t concentrate on slowing a labor and speeding a car, all at the same time.

  I pulled over. “Lord,” I begged out loud, “we’re in big trouble here.” I gritted my teeth and panted to keep from pushing. “We need help. Please send a policeman our way.”

  At that very moment, a patrol car passed us.

  Timmy exclaimed, “There he is, Mom! Let’s go catch him!” By now the patrolman had pulled on to the interstate, so I put the car in drive again and followed in close pursuit. While
the rest of the traffic crawled along at twenty miles per hour, the policeman cruised at thirty. Dangerously, I sped as fast as I dared behind him, honking my horn, flashing my headlights and panting.

  The policeman drove on.

  I pressed the gas pedal to catch up to him, trying to tap my bumper into his. That caught his attention. He stopped. I stopped. Jumping out of his car, he slammed the door, and tramped to mine. But I was already outside, screaming to him through the sleeting snow. “Contractions, two minutes, baby’s coming!”

  He looked more terrified than I felt.

  He explained that he was on his way to an accident just a few miles down the road. He phoned in my emergency, with little hope for immediate attention. I leaned onto the hood of the car and panted to keep from pushing.

  “There’s an extra ambulance at the accident site,” he exclaimed from his phone. “It’ll be here in three minutes!”

  “Make it two!” I hollered, wishing the freezing snow could somehow ease the searing pain in my abdomen.

  “Can I call somebody for you?” the patrolman asked helplessly.

  I shouted my husband’s work number to him, but his trembling hands couldn’t write it down. He scribbled again and again, and finally just dialed the number as I repeated it a fourth time.

  Just then, the ambulance and fire truck screamed across the median and to our aid. Before the paramedics coaxed me onto the cart I went to my children, shivering in the back seat. “Just stay with the firemen,” I assured them, unable to force my usual it’ll-be-okay-smile. “They’ll help you.”

  I breathed with the rhythm of the ambulance siren, and thanked God I was in the hands of EMTs. Still, I prayed harder that we’d make it to the hospital in time.

  Little did I know that my husband was joining me in prayer as he drove too fast down the same interstate. Cautiously, he sped past a fire truck and looked—then looked again at the three little blond heads in the front seat. He waved the fire truck down. “Those are my kids! Where are you taking them?”

  The fireman yelled out his window, instructing Del to head on to the hospital; he’d bring the children. Del glanced at the three beaming fire cadets, waving madly from the front seat. He blew them a kiss and jumped back in his car.

  The ambulance siren droned as we finally approached the emergency entrance.

  “The baby’s coming!” I moaned. In a heartbeat, I was on a gurney, with the paramedics jogging alongside, wheeling me into the birthing unit. Dr. Hoffmann greeted me with a nervous smile.

  “So, you came special delivery, huh, Debbie?” I could only groan. He squeezed my hand. “Now let’s go deliver this baby.”

  Right on cue, Del ran into the birthing room just as I slid over to the birthing bed. With a gush, my water burst. The only thing scarier than the increased pain was the look on the nurse’s face. Dr. Hoffmann’s gaze fixed on hers. I knew we were in deep trouble.

  “Debbie, the amniotic fluid is badly stained,” he said as he worked feverishly over the baby’s protruding head. “That means the baby had a bowel movement under all this stress. That’s not a good sign.” He grimaced as he grabbed the scissors. “And the cord is wrapped around its neck—tight. Don’t push, Debbie. Don’t push.” He turned to the nurse. “I saw a pediatrician in the hall—get him in here—STAT.”

  As the nurse rushed out, my three kids and the fireman rushed in. I alternated between panting and praying as the fireman talked in a hushed tone to Del, then left.

  Dr. Hoffmann said, “Del, I’m going to give Debbie a local anesthetic before the next contraction. You may want to take the kids out of the room.”

  As Del escorted them to the door, I heard Tim ask, “Daddy, why do we have to leave before the next trash man?”

  “No, Timmy,” Del chuckled. “He said contraction, not trash man.”

  So then I was panting and praying and laughing.

  Two more contractions, and Del was back at my side as our baby pushed his way into our world. And with no one to watch our children, they watched the birth of their brother.

  I wish I could say the moment was joyous, but baby Ty debuted in critical condition. Danika summed it up, “Daddy, I didn’t know babies were born purple.”

  For the next six days, Ty fought for his life in intensive care. The pediatrician shook his head in dismay. “Everything went so wrong,” he said sadly.

  “I disagree, Doctor,” I argued. “Didn’t God give me an office nurse who listened to my concerns and told me to come in? And didn’t he send a policeman just when I asked for one? And didn’t he arrange for an extra ambulance to be just a few miles away? And didn’t he see to it that a fire truck was there for our children? And didn’t he put you in the hallway when we needed you? And didn’t you tell me that if Ty had been born outside of the hospital, he never would have survived? On the contrary, Doctor, I’d say everything went just right.”

  On the seventh day we bundled little Ty in his brand-new blanket, and took him home, healthy and strong.

  We’re still in awe of how that Perfect Plan unfolded. The kids will attest to that as they sum up the events of that day. “You’ll never believe what happened! We got to ride in a fire truck!”

  Debbie Lukasiewicz

  As told to LeAnn Thieman

  Summons to the Danger Zone

  God does not ask your ability or your inability. He asks only your availability.

  Mary Kay Ash

  Edie worked as a nurse at the state psychiatric hospital in Massachusetts. Such a job is always challenging. One of the hardest parts was admitting new patients brought in by ambulance. “You’re never sure what state they’ll be in,” Edie says. “There’s often a dangerous point, when they realize they’re going to be hospitalized.”

  The Admissions Department at that hospital was in a basement area, somewhat removed from regular hospital activity. Because of this, proper procedure involved two people meeting the ambulance, an admitting nurse accompanied by a male mental-health technician.

  One night Edie was helping out in a ward other than her own when she learned that a patient was on his way by ambulance. Because everyone else was busy, Edie volunteered to meet him. She was uneasy because she rarely did admissions and the technician who accompanied her was new and very hesitant. As the two came down the quiet corridor, Edie was relieved to see Dan waiting for them. Dan was a strong and thoroughly reliable tech with whom she had often worked, though never in Admissions. What a nice coincidence that he happened to be there at just the right moment.

  Edie greeted the young patient with a smile. “Hi, I’m Edie. I’ll be doing your admission.” His expression began to change and, without warning, the young man lunged at Edie, grabbing for her throat. The other tech barely reacted, but Dan instantly caught the patient in a basket hold and subdued him while Edie summoned additional help.

  Her heart was still racing an hour later when she and Dan had a chance to discuss the close call. “I’m so glad you were there,” Edie told him. “Otherwise, I could have been badly injured.”

  “It was lucky you phoned,” Dan agreed. “But how did you know I was working overtime, five buildings away from you?”

  Edie frowned. “What do you mean, Dan? I didn’t call you.”

  “But—,” Dan stared at her, puzzled. “Some woman phoned our medical-room nurse. She said, ‘Send Dan to Admissions. Edie needs help.’”

  Some woman. But who? The busy nurse on Edie’s floor hadn’t phoned. They had already sent an escort with Edie, and they weren’t aware Dan was still on duty in a building on the other side of the grounds. The nurse on Dan’s ward didn’t know Edie or anything about the new admission.

  Who summoned Dan to the danger zone before Edie had even arrived? No one ever discovered the answer. But Edie knows. “The ninety-first Psalm has always been a favorite of mine,” she says. “. . . No evil shall befall you, no affliction come near you. For God commands the angels to guard you in all your ways.”

  Joan Wester Anderson<
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  The Hand of God

  Nothing is or can be accidental with God.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  In 1966, during the earliest days of kidney transplantation, I witnessed a series of events where I could clearly see the hand of God touching a man’s life.

  I was a member of the transplant team in a very large, busy hospital. The plan was in place for a man named Don to donate a kidney to his younger brother, Ray, on Wednesday the third.

  On the morning of Monday the first, Ray was beginning his scheduled kidney dialysis four floors below the surgery suite. Monday was a heavily scheduled day for surgeries. I was assisting a surgeon in one room while another nurse resterilized the transplant equipment used over the weekend.

  At the same time, a man in his mid-thirties entered the emergency room in cardiac arrest. The intern, who had just spent the previous month as part of the kidney transplant team, recognized the man as Don. He had worked with this donor just the week before. When his frantic efforts to save Don failed, the intern continued CPR, hoping to save the kidney until his younger brother was located. His staff called our surgery suite and was stunned to learn that not only were there two surgery rooms suddenly available, but the younger brother was in the building undergoing his weekly dialysis.

  The responsibility fell on the nurses in the dialysis unit to explain to Ray that his brother had fallen gravely ill at work and was not able to be revived. With the two brothers side by side in adjoining operating rooms, the kidney was removed from Don and successfully implanted into Ray.

  In a big-city hospital, only by the grace of God could two surgical suites be empty on a busy Monday morning, the kidney transplant team be in the OR, the kidney recipient be in the hospital, and the intern recognize the donor at the time of his death.