I stood in the doorway, watching a now serene Tony helped back to his cabin by Stan and another counselor. And I marveled that what four adults could not figure out, God had reached past the fog of a little boy’s mind and made crystal clear.
Sharon Weinland Georges
as told to Judith Weinland Justice
Another Wavelength
God made Truth with many doors to welcome every believer who knocks on them.
Kahlil Gibran
When I was a young nurse, we had a patient in our hospital who, although gravely ill, did not want to talk about this subject, nor did he want to pray. Although the doctors warned him that it was time to give these matters serious thought, he seemed not to hear it. “Oh, I’ll make peace with the Lord when the time comes,” he said to me with a wink. Despite this, he was a lovable, cooperative, cheerful man with a great enthusiasm for life and a generous interest in others. The one cherished object he had managed to bring with him to the hospital was a shortwave radio, which he kept on a nightstand next to his bed.
As I cared for other patients, I passed his room, which was right next to the nurses’ station. Each time I passed, I said a little prayer. And each time I passed, he called out loudly, “Anne, come and listen! I think I’ve tuned in Rhodesia”—or some other faraway country that held for him some particular fascination.
Too busy to stop at his request one afternoon, I laughed in response to his usual invitation to “Come listen!” and told him I couldn’t stop right then. “But be sure to tell me,” I joked, “if you tune in heaven!”
A few days later, he had a major stroke. Already severely ill, this added to his rapidly weakening condition. He was no longer able to speak, except for an occasional word or two, and this with great difficulty.
One night I went into his room with his medications and his enteral feeding, and I lingered longer than usual, trying to find some way of making him more comfortable. For once, the shortwave radio remained silent. He struggled to breathe.
While I was adjusting the bed linens, he tugged on my sleeve, indicating that he wanted to tell me something. I bent close to his ear. He smiled weakly with a twinkle in his eye. With great difficulty, he managed to form these words with his last breaths:
“I did it, Anne . . . I . . . finally . . . tuned in . . . heaven!”
Anne Wilson
I’m Going to Die!
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.
Romans 8:28
I’m going to die!
The words pierced my soul. Everything around me was spinning. I put down the telephone and replayed the conversation in my mind.
“Kathy, your HIV test . . . it’s come back positive!” my doctor had blurted out.
In shock, I stared out the window. My worst nightmare had come true.
Back in June 1986, I was a nurse working in the ER when an accident-related trauma patient was wheeled in. We cracked open his chest to perform internal CPR. My bare hands were wrist-deep inside him. Despite our best efforts, he died minutes later.
Later that night, we found out he had AIDS. My own heart skipped a beat as I looked down at my hands and remembered a minor cut on my right index finger. As you know, back in the mid-1980s, we didn’t wear gloves to protect us.
The doctors decided to run additional tests to confirm the positive results. My nightmare continued. Weeks later, eight confirmatory tests also came back positive. The doctors notified the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), who were also concerned.
You see, I was the first healthcare worker in America to ever test HIV-positive from an on-the-job exposure.
Back then, AIDS was a guaranteed death sentence. Most AIDS victims did not survive more than a year. Speculation was rampant, but no one really knew all the ways it could be spread.
No, this can’t happen to me, I thought angrily. I can’t handle it! What am I going to do? I am a nurse just trying to help someone! It was more than I could bear.
Reluctantly, that night I sat down and tearfully told my family.
Then, after mentally laboring for days, I forced myself to tell my boss. She was sympathetic, but said, “Kathy, if this gets out, this hospital will shut down. I’m sorry, but you can’t work here anymore.”
That weekend, I shared the shocking news with my church. To my amazement, some members turned away from me. I overheard one say, “You know AIDS is God’s punishment.” Another member whispered, “Don’t touch her, you’ll take it home to your kids!”
I stopped eating. I stopped sleeping.
One night in a graduate school class, as I wrestled with my own demons, my professor showed a film, Living with AIDS. Sitting in the classroom, in disbelief, I watched young people at the prime of their lives wasting away in hospitals. My classmates talked in hushed tones about the horror of the disease. If they only knew who was sitting beside them . . .
That night I determined one thing: I was not going to die the slow, agonizing death of an AIDS victim. I was not going to waste away. I could not. I would not. I would choose how I would die.
After class, I got in my car. I started driving, my mind racing. It raced for hours around a track called “regrets.” Regrets about not spending more time with my family and friends. I was always too busy, too stressed. Regrets about not taking the time to find out who Kathy Dempsey really was.
Finally, I found myself in the parking lot of Chattanooga’s most famous hotel. I was about to add to its legend. All alone, I sat in my car that dark, drizzling night with a bottle of sleeping pills in my hand. Slowly I counted them.
One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . six . . . seven . . . eight . . . nine . . . ten . . . No ten, that isn’t enough. I’ve seen too many people survive on ten. I better take them all.
Three knocks on my car window jolted me back into reality. Robin, one of my friends, appeared from out of nowhere. “Kathy, are you okay?”
With tears streaming down my face, I shook my head, “No. I’m scared. I’m lonely. I’m dying!”
Robin climbed into the car beside me. “Hold on to hope,” she soothed.
“Why should I go on? There is no hope!” I responded in despair.
For hours we sat and talked and cried. For every foreboding fear I stated, Robin had a beam of hope. Somehow this angel got me through the night.
My life and this story did not end there.
Three months after my initial test, I received another phone call from my doctor.
“Kathy, I am not sure how to tell you this. It’s almost unbelievable . . . but your tests, all eight of your tests . . . have come back negative. The CDC says you are not HIV-positive!”
There was the longest silence over the phone. I took a deep breath and hung up. I’m going to live! I’m going to live! No words had ever felt so joyous! I felt like a thousand-pound weight had been lifted from my chest.
Some people call it a medical error; I call it a miracle. A gift. It was my wake-up call. I thought my life was over, and now I had it back. Like a VCR tape, I got to push “rewind.” All the regrets I had back in the car, I could amend. I fell to my knees, and promised myself from that day forward, “I will not live my life the same way again.”
In a strange and crooked way, the events of a dying man’s life changed mine forever.
Kathy B. Dempsey
[EDITORS’ NOTE: Twenty years later, Kathy volunteered in Africa helping orphans who lost parents to AIDS. She established the Keep Shedding Educational Foundation to support her efforts.
Visit www.keepshedding.com/foundation.htm. ]
His Heart
There are times when God asks nothing of his children except silence, patience, and tears.
C. S. Robinson
As I rode the elevator to my evening shift on the seventh floor of the cardiac step-down unit, I wondered, Did anyone get a heart today?
I looked over my assignments and noticed a new name. Ah, a fresh audience for my elephant jo
kes. Robert, as I will call him, had been diagnosed with cardiomyopathy and was awaiting a heart transplant. I read his chart, then put on my best smile as I stepped into his room to introduce myself. His wife was at his bedside, but stood to kiss him good-bye as I entered. She needed to make the long drive home, she said, to care for their two boys, ages nine and ten.
Robert was a quiet man in his late thirties and a long way from home. Every day his family stayed in touch by telephone and letters, but they could not visit often. Tall and thin, Robert walked the halls for exercise.Wearing our blue issued pj’s and blue-striped robe with matching slippers, he always looked the same. Even in the hospital attire, he was neat and usually smiling.
Tethered to our floor by his portable telemetry unit, Robert was a hostage. Sometimes he roamed out of range, and the central monitor alarm alerted me of his “escape.” I always knew where I would find him . . . by the windows overlooking the helicopter landing pad.
After yet another alarm, I walked to Robert’s window seat. He greeted me with “Hi, Warden! I know I’m out of range.”
I smiled and stepped closer. “How you doing today, Robert?”
He nodded toward the landing pad. “Thea, I watch the copters come and go. I keep wondering if my heart is out there. I have asked God to help me not to be selfish in wanting this heart. I know for me to live someone must die. And loved ones are faced with making a choice; a choice to donate the organs.”
I nodded and gently led him back within range.
Robert stayed on our unit for more than thirty days. I became his link to the outside world, giving him daily weather reports, commenting on current events, telling countless elephant jokes—anything to keep him laughing and comfortable. After a month of in-hospital days, some patients may show their cabin fever by being irritable. Not Robert. I knew he was having a bad day only when his door was closed. And he didn’t close his door often.
One evening as I checked his vital signs, he sighed. “I’m having a really tough day. I miss my family. It’s been so long since I’ve seen my boys. I didn’t even go to the window today.”
Later that evening, I learned there was a confirmed donor and match for Robert. Suddenly, the unit flew into a frenzied heart-prep mode. I was pleased to be on duty for this moment, especially since I was scheduled for vacation the following week. Thank you, Lord, for such good timing. Bless the family whose loved one has died. Thank you for the gift of life they gave to another.
Robert’s wife and sons arrived and the air was electric as joyful tears flowed. After the final preps, I placed the blue surgical cap on Robert’s head. “Make certain you come and see me when you get the color back in your cheeks.”
He smiled. “Thea, I won’t leave this place till I come up and see you.”
With that, the OR team wheeled Robert to the surgical suite to begin the cardiac transplantation. From there, he would spend several days in ICU.
I returned from my vacation well rested and was working with a nurse we called “Mother Teresa.” In addition to sharing my belief in God, she was a person to count on. As we prepared the 6:00 PM meds, we made small talk.
I looked down the hall. There was Robert, walking toward me in his usual blue pj’s, blue-striped robe, and matching slippers, with his hands in his pockets and a beautiful smile on his face. I waved to him excitedly and said to Theresa, “There’s Robert. He looks great!”
Then I felt her firm but gentle hand on mine. I turned to look into Mother Teresa’s soft blue eyes. I stared at her for a moment, then said, “No one’s there. Right, Mother?”
As she squeezed my hand, I searched her face for any hint she might think I was losing my mind. Instead she said, “I believe you saw Robert. But no one is there.”
She hugged me, but I quickly pulled away. “Oh, Teresa, I need to go to ICU. Robert said he would not leave until he came to say good-bye. He always kept his word.”
I hurried to the fourth-floor ICU. “Which room is Robert in?” The desk clerk gave the number but then added, “He’s in cardiac arrest.”
My spirits sank. I stepped to Robert’s doorway and watched the heroic efforts of the doctors and nurses to bring him back. I sent up frantic prayers for his recovery and left while the code was still in progress.
Back on my floor, I told Teresa that Robert was in cardiac arrest. We prayed together for him, then got word that he died.
I smiled as I wiped away tears. Robert had kept the promise he made to me. He came to see me before he left this place.
Thea Picklesimer
as told to Sandra P. Aldrich
9
HOPE
Until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words—“Wait and hope.”
Alexandre Dumas
The Reason
While there’s life, there’s hope.
Cicero
Little Emily should not have been admitted to our intensive care unit. Why didn’t the EMTs take her to the nearby children’s hospital? I lamented. At eighteen months, she was too old for our hospital’s newborn intensive care, and severe brain damage made her too unstable to transport. So here she was in adult ICU, stuck between an elderly woman with double pneumonia and a man with a fresh cardiac bypass.
Emily’s last prehospital day had dawned cold and clear. After being cooped inside with the recent snow, her mother decided to take her for an outing. She bundled up her little daughter, put her in the stroller, and set out on a walk along their country lane. The bright sun was beginning to warm the air, and Emily delighted in pointing at the snow melting on the side of the road.
It was the snow that was her undoing. As a car came over the next hill, the sun reflected off the white surface and temporarily blinded the driver. He didn’t see Emily or her mom. His car struck the stroller and sent the baby flying thirty feet where she landed on her head. Her mother was uninjured.
When doctors first examined Emily, her pupils were dilated and fixed. They immediately took her to surgery, but there was little they could do. “Her entire right hemisphere is oatmeal,” one neurosurgeon said. “She’ll never walk or talk again. I doubt she’ll even make it out of the hospital.”
I first saw Emily a week after the accident. Well, at least she’s still with us, I thought as I looked at my beautiful little patient. Her wispy blond hair was replaced by a puffy, red suture line on the right side of her head. The hair might grow back one day, I thought, but nothing will replace the damaged brain cells inside. I did my best to take care of Emily using the pediatric equipment we improvised, but fretted over the hopelessness of her situation.
The immensity of the tragedy became even more clear whenever I saw Emily’s mother. Grief and guilt aged that young woman more than forty years could have. She would stand at her baby’s bedside and pat her little hand, crying bitter tears. It was more than I could bear to watch. Why couldn’t they have taken her to the pediatric hospital? I thought.
Gradually, however, we weaned Emily off the ventilator. Finally, her pulmonary doctor ordered the evening nurse to remove her endotracheal tube. Emily breathed on her own, and her mother rejoiced. Later, on the night shift, I heard mewing sounds from Emily’s room. I thought at first she was trying to cry but soon realized she was “crowing,” a sound caused by strictures in her trachea. Back went the ET tube. I wrapped my arms around Emily’s mother as she cried over this latest injustice.
Two days later, the tube came out for good, but there was still no response, no indication that Emily would ever know anyone or anything. A “vegetable,” that’s what people will call her, I thought. Her mother will be taking care of her until she dies. So sad.
Eventually the doctors deemed Emily stable enough to move to the pediatric floor. At least I would not have to watch as her mother tried in vain to get her to say “Mama” or “wata,” two words she could say before her accident.
Five weeks passed, and I forced myself not to think about Emily. Afte
r all, I knew what the outcome of her situation would be.
One night, a pediatric nurse visited the ICU and announced, “Emily’s going home tomorrow.”
Good, I thought, at least her mother can take her home and care for her forever.
“Not only that, but she’s reaching for her mother, calling her ‘Mama,’ and asking for ‘wata’!”
The next day, as they prepared to leave, Emily walked across the room into her mother’s arms.
It was then I knew the reason Emily had come to our adult intensive care unit.
She came to show me that we must never give up, no matter how grave the situation seems, or how many experts tell us the outcome is futile.
She came to teach me hope.
Tracy Crump
An Easter Lesson
Sorrows are our best educators. A man can see further through a tear than a telescope.
Lord Byron
Only a year had passed since my father died and I was still very much mourning him. It was Easter weekend and Mass was being offered in his honor. I needed to be there with my family. Unfortunately, due to a staffing shortage, my shift in the intensive care nursery was extended to twelve hours and I’d miss this crucial time of commemoration. To make matters worse I was assigned the care of a baby who had been born with no kidneys and a host of associated problems, and would surely not live more than a couple of days. I didn’t need to deal with the inevitable emotions that threatened to overwhelm my already fragile heart.
“That’s it! I’ll be home soon, because I’m quitting!” I fumed as my husband patiently endured my fit.