miracle man

this week, after a long 12 hour shift, as i walked down the mile long corridor towards the garage and couldn't find my key card to get past some doorway, a nice nurse came up behind me and let me through. we ended up walking to our cars together and chatted the whole way. turns out, i know this woman. not SUPER well. but enough. and she knows me. what my family has been through. she was one of my dad's primary nurses when he was a patient at my hospital more than 14 years ago for five weeks.

at first we just talked about our respective jobs. about oncology versus cardiac patients. about the number of our patients who die. we talked about the "heroic" and sometimes not so heroic measures we institute to keep people alive. and about how sometimes what we do in medicine feels inhumane and morally wrong. then, for a brief second we talked about how i was supposed to work on her unit. how i got a job as a cardiac ICU nurse and quit about 10 days before i was supposed to start via email from kolkata, india.

and then, she asked. a question i assume she was hesitant to ask. because after 14 years of being a cardiac patient, sometimes the outcome is not so good. but she asked anyway. "how is your dad doing?" i beamed with pleasure. my answer was "good. great actually. he just returned from almost a month in europe, visiting his home country. and earlier this year, he and my mom went to china. they retired more than a year ago and it's been so good for him. for them." the nurse remembered by dad's deli. he had only owned it for more than a year when he fell so ill.

it was nice to talk about my dad. people often ask me about him. because they know how important he is to me. how much i love him. care about him. and worry. then the nurse said, "you know, it's amazing how much i remember about your dad. i remember you and your sister and your mom so well." i replied with, "well, we were there a long time." but LOTS of her patients stay a long time. lots of patients have heartbreaking stories and supportive families. she said, "i guess you remember the miracles!"

happy birthday to my favorite miracle! my dad turns 68 years young today. and i love him!