Are There Really Coincidences in Life? I think not…

This experience was a “first” for me in Nursing...

I was working last Thursday night (the 19th) in the ER, and had gotten to work a few minutes earlier than usual so that one of the nurses could leave early. She gave me her two “easy” patients, and left, and I started picking up a couple more patients from other nurses going home. Then I started checking on the patients I’d picked up, one by one. As I got to the last one, I walked into the room and started my spiel (Hi, my name is Wendy and I’m going to be your nurse for a while…) I’d just gotten to my name when I heard the patient say “WENDY MARTINEZ”??!! I looked a little skeptical at first, knowing only my first name shows on my badge. Then she told me her name, and I knew instantly who she was…Tiffany Felt…a DEAR friend of mine from Seattle, whom I’d lost contact with about 5-6 years ago, and her husband Brian Felt. I didn’t recognize her at first, but as I looked closer, she is still as beautiful as she always was when I knew her in Seattle. Amazingly enough, and because I’d just checked on everyone else first, I had 20-30 minutes to sit down and we talked non-stop without interruption.

As I learned of their reason for being here, my heart went out to her, and I realized that I’d be able to bless her life over the next while. She has had some medical problems lately, which have so far gone undiagnosed…everything comes back “normal” and yet it is affecting her ability to function in her life. They drove 1000 miles to this hospital for testing and hopefully to find the right doctors who can help her, but her husband has to go back home to Washington to attend to his responsibilities there. He is going to have to leave her and their 3 girls with his parents in the area, which is a blessing. But the Lord knew she needed a friend here as well while her husband had to go back home, and He sent me. I was the first familiar face in a sea of blue scrubs and white coats, and it was a comfort to her.

As I thought through the night about it, I realized all of the seemingly small events that had taken place that allowed our paths to cross for one hour in the ER. They’d been there for several hours, and the admission paperwork had been turned in for quite a while, but it had taken longer than average for them to get a bed-assignment so we could move her to her room upstairs. Right after we met and talked, I got a bed assignment, and was able to get her transferred upstairs. If I’d come in at my usual time that night (or even 5-10 minutes later), she’d have been assigned to a different nurse, and I wouldn’t have even known she was there. The fact that they came in that very day, one of my 3 shifts for the week, was a small miracle in and of itself. And the final one that I see is that over the last 2-3 weeks or so, things in my life have wound down to a point that I just don’t have a lot of extra stuff going on right now that takes my time…and I will be able to spend some of this time with her and her family, through the doctors visits, and the long hopeless hours at times. I know that the Lord will bless me with the time when I need to be there.

I recognize that the Lord plays a role in our lives even when we don’t notice it, and He blesses us with the things that we need, sometimes in the very hour that we need them. I needed to see her just as much as she needed to see me that night, and we’ve both been blessed tremendously by the experience. We’ve had time to spend several hours together this weekend, and I’ve had a chance to get to know her husband and two of her three girls. What a wonderful family she has! How thankful I am for a profession where I’m allowed to “walk with angels” at times, even when I don’t always recognize that I’m doing such. It is my calling…my life work…and I feel that I’ve been blessed the most!