Miracles in the ER by Robert D. Lesslie Read Free Book Online

anything. He just sat there and listened. Then Ms. Granger stopped, and we all sat there for a couple of minutes, no one saying a word. Finally, she got up, walked over to Dr.Whipple, and put a hand on his shoulder. She told him we’re a family, and a family looks after each other. We wanted to look after him, but he had to decide something first. He had to decide if he wanted to be in this family.
    “I think I saw tears in his eyes, but he looked down and I couldn’t be sure. When he sat up, it was like a light had been turned on. He apologized to Ms. Granger and Sharon, and he apologized to me. He thanked us, then walked out of the office and back to work. He’s been different ever since, as I said a little while ago. But he’s not just easier to get alongwith—he’s happier and more at peace. I bet when he gets the chance, he’ll apologize to you too. You’ll see. He’s different.”
    She stopped and smiled at me.
    “I see what you mean by an ‘answer to prayer,’ ” I said quietly. “You’ve been praying a long time for this, and your prayers have been answered.”
    “Answered in the form of Virginia Granger,” Lori chuckled. “Funny how the Lord works sometimes. He knew just what Dr. Whipple needed to hear and when he needed to hear it. And he knew who he needed to hear it from. He used Ms. Granger to answer my prayers.”
    I glanced at Virginia’s closed office door, and again at Lori—thankful for these two wise women the Lord had placed in my life.

U NSEEN Miracles
    A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.
    J ESUS , in Matthew 13:3-9

A Seed Planted
    Harriet Gray’s glass was always half full, and if she had a motto to live by, it would probably have been “accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative…don’t mess with Mr. In-Between.” She lived that way, and spent forty-two years as a nurse in the ER demonstrating those words with her infectious smile, her warm caring, and a crushing hug that left little doubt how she felt about you. If you could paint the picture of a grandmother, it would be Harriet Gray.
    She and Virginia Granger had been together in the trenches of the ER for several decades and were each other’s best friend. When Virginia’s husband had died a few years ago, Harriet was right beside her, day and night, for more than a week. And when Harriet lost consciousness in the ER one day with new-onset diabetes, it was Virginia’s turn. She stayed in the ICU with Harriet until she was finally able to move to a regular bed.
    Together they trained a lot of nurses and molded a lot of young physicians who worked in the ER. I was fortunate enough to be one of those young ER docs, and fortunate enough to have the air hugged out of me on numerous occasions.

    Jackie Watts was lying on the stretcher of the cardiac room, eyes closed, arms folded over his abdomen. He had been brought in from the county jail, complaining of chest pain. Two sheriff’s deputies had accompanied him.
    “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with him, Doc,” one of the deputies told me. A wad of snuff under his upper lip made it hard to understand him, and I leaned closer and watched his mouth, intrigued. “Says he has chest pain,but he was doin’ fine. Heck, he’s twenty-six years old. He ain’t havin’ no heart attack.”
    We were standing in the hallway just outside cardiac, waiting for one of our techs to finish an EKG.
    “He’s probably just lookin’ for a chance to—”
    There was a metallic crash, followed