Zahra was a teenaged girl who had just returned from a family visit in Pakistan. She really enjoyed the trip as her aunts and uncles had spoiled her. Karachi was an exciting place, ‘the City of Lights’, with so much to do and see. The weather had been quite humid and it had rained for a number of days – this was because it was the height of the rainy season. She hardly noticed the few mosquito bites she got, because everything was just so wonderful!
It was several weeks after she came home to Connecticut, when she first noticed the headaches. She also developed an upset stomach and high fevers. She went to the Emergency Department complaining of the symptoms. The doctor requested blood work as routine: A chemistry panel, a complete blood count and some liver tests to see if everything was ‘normal’. To the doctor’s great surprise, she was called by the lab technician with an abnormal finding on the blood smear.
Now it just so happened that Rosie was working that night. Rosie grew up in the Philippines and learned her lab skills there before immigrating to the U.S. She had seen many different tropical diseases through the microscope. Rosie called to report ‘ring forms’ characteristic of malaria in Zahra’s red blood cells. This was a vital discovery, as malaria is a very dangerous disease.
The doctor was astonished, she hadn’t even consider malaria as a possibility. Now Zahra would be admitted to the hospital for treatment to eradicate the infection. They called me late at night, but the challenge of making the diagnosis was over. Malaria! I was amazed at Rosie’s skill. How did she do that? The proper malaria test had not even been sent, but Rosie figured it out. I thought to myself ‘what if’ someone else had been in the lab that night? Would they have noticed the strange ‘rings’ in the red blood cells? Zahra’s life would be saved. It was another ‘small miracle’ –shukriya Rosie!
Small Miracles 