Miracle!! Has any nurses witnessed one?

GilaRRT · Aug 3, 2007

Hard to define. You can look at an event that goes against conventional thought as a miracle or chalk it up to dumb luck. It all depends on how you choose to define the event in question.

gr8rnpjt, RN · Aug 3, 2007

Your question brought back a memory that I had to share. It was not quite a miracle, but don't tell the pt.

We had a pt with lung CA and mets to the brain. She was confused but in a pleasant way. But she was a little kooky.

Her Dr was a very serious oncologist. Dr. D. was probably the smartest Dr I ever met. He was a brilliant man and had a very serious demeanor. I mean I never saw him smile or crack a joke.

Well, all morning this pt kept telling the staff that when Dr. D came in he would be performing a miracle on her. She kept saying she needed to get prepared and she was going around in her room picking up bits of paper and a box of kleenex and a pencil, any other odds and ends she could find and said that she needed these things for the miracle that Dr. D. was going to perform. All day whenever anyone came in to the room, she would exclaim exitedly that Dr. D. was going to perform a miracle on her and don't forget to come to her room when Dr. D comes in so we can all witness the miracle. So Dr. D comes in and I grabbed his pts charts and started to round with him. We saw a couple other pt's first and when I handed him this pt's chart and we were ready to go in, I told him what the pt had been saying. He told me before we went into the room that he had recently told the pt that any further treatment would be futile, but she would not accept it and she had told him yesterday about him performing a miracle today. So we walk into the room just as the pt is LIGHTING a pile of stuff on the middle of her bed with a lighter!!! (this was when we still furnished our pt's with ashtrays because they all smoked and we bedded pt's according to men or women and smokers or non smokers. So this pt is lighting a pile of stuff on the middle of her bed and she is sitting cross legged on the bed CHANTING LOUDLY about how Dr. D will now perform the miracle!!!

Very calmly Dr. D took her water pitcher and put out the fire on the bed. The pt looked up and said, "He did it! Dr D. performed a miracle and I am cured!!!"

I looked at Dr D, and he had just a hint of a smile on his lips, the first time I ever saw him smile. He told me to page housekeeping to clean up the mess and ordered a psych consult for the pt.