Today we have some short stories of unconditional love I've been able to hear, and deserve sharing.
The first one is from a woman who I met at the local crystal shop. She had two paper plates and needed a trash can. The strip mall doesn't have any outside. When I had something to throw away I had to walk around the block to a church and use their dumpster. So I smiled and took her plate to the trash can in the store near the tea area.
When I go to this shop I enjoy a mug of tea.
She asked me about my work, since I was in scrubs, and she wanted to know if I'm a nurse.
I'm sure she saw my necklace and bracelets, and the ease I had in interacting with the staff at this shop.
I said, 'no, I'm a doctor' and she said, 'WOW!'. She 'got it'. She understood the whole point of my existence, metaphysically, to bridge both worlds.
She's a healer too. All kinds of Wellness.
She shared about a friend who was a drug abuser. She took her in and cared for her in her poor health for eight years. She improved the nutrition and this friend was able to enjoy eight more years of life after having been at death's door.
One day the friend got an infection, and had to go to the hospital. Her liver failed, and everything else failed, and the friend died. The healer was angry and upset because the healthcare team focused on how worn out the organs were, how poor the health...after all she had given the friend so much and the friend seemed perfectly normal...all those years!
It's time for both worlds to unite.
And it will.
Dr. Sahni worked with me yesterday, and while he was doing a procedure he shared a story--actually it was just after the procedure ended. It was his 'one crazy thing' he did in his career, that he's proud of and would do again.
Dr. Sahni was a neonatologist back in India. 'Babies were dropping there like raindrops!' he said, as he would have to be present at the birth of both natural and c-section babies. (here it's c-section and available to come to natural births). He worked twelve hour shifts with no food and no breaks, he was constantly running up and down the hall.
I asked him, 'did you ever see anything go wrong?'
He paused, and said, two or three times. Most of the times it could have gone wrong, but with a baby if you get them breathing they do all right. I put in the breathing tube when kids were getting into trouble, and after ten minutes they were fine and able to be extubated.
He paused again and remembered the one crazy thing.
A neonate was jaundiced. His bilirubin was seventeen. At twenty-three it would be kernicterus, permanent brain damage, and death. (There was a hemolytic reaction with the Rh factor between the mom and the baby. She had six babies before this one, all of them had died from the same thing.)
The child needed a complete total body blood transfusion to save it.
But the blood bank had no B negative blood.
Dr. Sahni said, 'close the door'.
He is type B negative blood. There was no time to cross-match the blood.
He had the nurse draw the blood off his arm, fifty milliliters at a time.
He pushed it with the syringe through the umbilical cord.
He gave four hundred and fifty milliliters of his own blood to save the baby.
The baby recovered and went on to live a normal life with his family.
There was an investigation. The boss said to him, 'I know we did the right thing and we would do it again but next time be sure to cross-match the blood, okay?'
I once saved Dr. Sahni's life.
I also almost lost it for him.
I never knew who he was, but I was working in the GI lab at UCI. He had a liver biopsy. Everything was uneventful, the gastroenterologist had left, and Dr. Sahni was in the recovery room.
He said, 'I am bleeding'.
His vital signs were good.
His wife said, 'You might want to get a surgeon to check it out'
I watched him closely on the monitors. He looked fine, he was in compensated shock.
After a while, he started to decompensate. His hemorrhage from the biopsy site in the liver was so profound that he started to show signs of shock. I called the main O.R. and arranged for emergency surgery.
I wheeled his gurney to the O.R. and did his case. I remember intubating him. I remember the liver surgeon going in and having a big case.
From what I heard from Dr. Sahni, he had a very difficult and prolonged recovery.
His wife had told him in the morning before the procedure, 'if you don't want to do this today you don't have to'.
He always regretted his choice.
This happened years before I ever met him. I was in training.
Life is funny how it works.
This wasn't the first time Dr. Sahni almost died. He and his wife went to Denver to the best hospital for asthma.
He couldn't even speak, and he had been given six months to live.
The doctors there were flippant and dismissed him.
But the wife had researched everything, and knew as much as a physician. She brought out her list of questions.
One by one she let them know through her questioning that she understood her husband's situation and it's complexity.
And with each question they became more defensive and began to squirm.
'What about Ig G?' she asked.
'It doesn't work.' they said.
'Aren't you the author of the paper that said it works, the only paper there is about it?'
'Yes, but it doesn't work.' they countered.
'Well where are the papers you have published that say it doesn't work?' and 'How can you recommend against the Ig G when there is no medical literature against it?'
She beat them at their own game.
And her husband got the treatment. He's lived ten more years! He drives himself. Does the work. Pretty much any emergency case at the hospital, he does. Lots of GI bleeders. Lots of ERCP.
People are starting to awaken.
Out of the blue, before any of the stories, Dr. Sahni asked the room about the Catholic Priests who have sex with little boys. Isn't it a tragedy?
The room agreed, but the Vietnamese and Filipina tried to defend the church.
Dr. Sahni argued that the case is defenseless. A person in a position of God can't behave that way--there's no possibility for it, no excuse.
He called them a 'robber' or something.
He says he believes in God but not in Religion.
He is Sikh, but doesn't practice. He told of some people who gave two hundred thousand dollars to donate to build a new temple and the 'priests' (I don't know what they are called) didn't even say thank you or acknowledge these donors and say hello after the gift. Dr. Sahni calls them 'money grubbers'.
I asked about Diwali?
He celebrates it.
Because it's supposed to bring money and abundance.
But here it's different. Back home you are supposed to sleep with the doors open to bring in the prosperity. (The celebration has to do with someone who was thrown out by a relative--in the royalty--coming back. That's the light. I want to call it 'Mudra' or something like that but I know I have the name wrong).
He and his wife did the doors open the first year. And she said, 'I'm not doing that like this any more, not in this country'.
He laughed and said if you sleep with the door open here in the US then when you wake up the TV is missing and the stereo and the computer...
Good things are coming.
They are also all around you.
People are amazing.
Look for their stories and let them inspire you.
As we count down together now at 222.
Ross
Thank you Biramel for helping my Carla.
And I ask all of you to bless Carla in her free art class today for the nurses and doctors at the hospital. It is a really good thing. We are doing all of it for free with the donations you have so generously shared. She has acrylic paint, a teacher's set of brushes for the class, and about twenty canvases of all shapes and sizes for the students to choose. We are working with Spirit, it's called, 'Spiritual art'. and the students will be guided to create from the soul and from the heart, and to let go of the usual 'I can't draw' conditioning. Everyone will be given the materials and the instruction for free.
That's how we roll.
Stay tuned for future events.
clap! clap!
Aloha and Mahalos,
Namaste,
Peace,
Ross and Carla
The Couple
P.S. Yesterday in the robot room, Michelle, the RN FA who just lost her father she had been caregiver for since his strokes (she'd lost her mom to breast cancer when she was eighteen), pulled her angelite grief bracelet from her pocket near her heart, and said, 'this really helped, thank you. I never take it off. It made everything better.' Carla gave her a big hug, and encouraged her to keep it with her. And when she's ready for another bracelet, to let her know, and she will create it for her to help with the next steps of the healing process.
