ABOUT

ABOUT ‘SMALL MIRACLES’ 

Hello and welcome to ‘Small Miracles’.  This is a blog where I hope to report a small miracle every week or so.  As crazy as it might seem, small miracles are occuring all around us, all the time- we just have to keep our eyes, ears and of course our hearts open to recognize and understand them.

I’m lucky because I work as a doctor and every day I’m helping people who are sick.  The hospital I work in is a pretty good environment to spot miracles.   Big miracles are pretty obvious and usually generate some fanfare, but it’s the small miracles that can be just so wonderful, so amazing, and so inspirational.  A small miracle can change lives. 

A small miracle can take many forms.  For example, the spontaneous healing of an emotional wound…

It just so happened I was called to the bedside of a patient with an infection on the finger.  After telling the young woman what I thought of her disease, she broke down crying.  Obviously, it was more than just her finger that was the problem.  I sat at the foot of her bed and encouraged her to tell me more.  It was a little akward, because all that separated this patient from her roomate was a thin curtain  - of course her roomate and visitor could hear everything about her confession.  We had no other options though, and so we tried to ignore it.  Her roomate would have to do the same when her doctors questioned her about intimate details of her life - it was an unwritten code of privacy.

Life had treated the young woman quite badly up until this point - a lost job, harassment in the workplace, concerns about a lonely lifestyle… Then she confided to me that she wanted to kill herself.  These sort of thoughts are always extremely serious.  I knew I had to empathize as much as I could. I also had to prevent any catastrophe  ”Did she have a plan”?  “Had she tried to commit suicide before”?  I was very concerned about this young woman.  It was a difficult moment and she sobbed softly.  The sounds of her sobbing lasted for some time - there was no drug or vaccine I could give for this problem.  I knew I would have to listen and extend my compassion as much as possible.  Doctors, after all, are not able to heal and fix everything.

It was just then, that a small miracle occurred!  The woman had stopped sobbing now.  We both turned to see a man in a wheelchair roll up to the foot of her bed.  He had been visiting the patient in the bed next to her’s and of course had heard some of the exchange.  He said ‘hang in there lady, it will get better’.  He proceded to tell us his personal story of despair having been diagnosed with progressive muscular dystrophy that put this young man into a wheelchair for life.  He told us how he had felt life was just not worth living anymore.  In the depths of his despair, he found his future wife.  The two of them fell in love and were happily married.  The young man told us “I can’t even walk, but I”m happy - you have to look for the good things in life”.  With a radiant smile he passed us by. 

I never learned that man’s name, but he brought healing with those words and his presence.  A small miracle.

By this time, I could see our patient was feeling much improved.  In her face I could see her problems no longer seemed that important.  During the rest of her hospital stay things improved quite remarkably from that point on and she went home healed.

I think about that man in the wheelchair quite often - especially after a tough day on my feet, I settle back into my chair and think ‘what a blessing - to be able to walk’… a small reminder of the many things we take for granted.

RW