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Topic: hope (03/29/04)
TITLE: With Faith Comes Hope By Rebecca Daniels 04/02/04 |
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She had been at his side ten minutes when her mother came in to get her. “Michael is outside, he needs to talk to you” her mother stated. Michael was Sally’s husband of seventeen years and she knew he was supposed to be at work so something must be wrong. Wringing her hands and with a deep frown above her already red eyes, she asked for details. “I’m bleeding” was his reply.
Standing at the registration desk in the emergency room, the clerk didn’t bother to look up when he asked “name please”. There was apprehension in Sally’s voice as she gave the needed information. They never asked what the problem was, but she told them anyway.
Pacing the floor waiting for the triage nurse Sally was becoming even more irritated. “I don’t think they even know what the word bleeding is” she stated loudly hoping the triage nurse, who had stopped in the hall to have a personal conversation, would hear her.
“What do you mean bleeding?” the triage nurse asked. With her hands now on her hips and her voice obviously controlled, Sally stated again, “he is bleeding rectally. His pants are covered in blood, see for yourself” while pointing to the evidence. The triage nurse still had a blank look on her face, however, she did take them straight to a room.
“Well, we’ll have to get a stool specimen to check for the blood” stated the ER nurse. Once again, Sally stated, “there is no stool; it’s all blood”. “OK, well, I’ll go tell the doctor” stated the nurse.
Looking at her husband with tears in her eyes, a helpless Sally stated, “I knew we should have gone to the university hospital like we usually do. These people are going to let you bleed to death”. “Sally, calm down. I’m not worried. I wanted you to be close to your family with you grandfather upstairs dying. It will be ok” stated Michael.
“Mr. Johnson, hi, I’m Dr. West. They tell me you have had some GI bleeding. When did it start and when did it stop?” asked the doctor. Sally immediately recognized the doctor. “I know you, don’t I? You were my father’s doctor for a while” implied sally. “Oh, really, well it’s good to see you again” the doctor said, but the empty look on his face told Sally he didn’t remember her. What Sally didn’t tell her husband was that this doctor had almost let her father die.
“We’re going to do some blood work and we need to do an exam to check for blood in your stool” stated the doctor. With a red face Sally looked at her husband. “Please God, help me hold my tongue” she prayed. “There is no stool, there is only blood. He has been to the bathroom five times in the last thirty minutes and the commode is full of blood. I have tried to get the nurse to look at it but he refuses” stated Sally as she fought the tears from coming in streams. But her words were useless. The doctor still did the test to check for blood in the stool.
After he left, Sally said another prayer. She asked for strength, for her husbands healing and for her grandfather to go in peace. The specialist had been consulted and he was going to admit Michael to ICU for observation, and to infuse blood. A surgeon had been consulted and fortunately he was an associate Sally knew from the university hospital.
Sally was exhausted. She had picked up her daughters and came home to rest. Her husband was being observed closely by a nurse Sally had talked with and she had decided he was more competent than anyone she had met so far. Her grandfather had passed away peacefully two hours earlier.
She struggled to open her eyes, the noise wouldn’t stop. Finally coherent from her deep sleep Sally answered the phone. The tears were streaming down her face and her voice was shaky. “Mrs. Johnson, you need to come to the hospital” was the only thing the doctor had said.
“Please God, I can’t lose him. This family needs him. Please don’t let him be gone” Sally had prayed all the way to the hospital. The nurse met her and gave her the rundown of what had happened and told her the surgeon wanted her to call him at home.
“Sally, your husband lost over a liter of blood at once. The attending doctor isn’t doing any test until Monday. I can call the university hospital and have the GI doctor there admit him straight to ICU and they will find out the problem now” he stated. “Please do and thank you” was all she could muster to say.
The bleeding stopped as mysteriously as it had started. Michael later told Sally what had transpired in his hospital room after losing the large amount of blood. “I could feel people praying for me. I told God if he needed me to go I was ok with it, but I would like to stay and take care of my family a little while longer. Then this peaceful feeling came over me and I haven’t bled a drop since”.
Even in this desperate situation when so many things went wrong, Sally had never lost hope. God had proved when you have faith, you have hope.