Steadfast Love

I woke up yesterday morning in Tucson with my first duty shift of caring for my 2 year old and 3 month old grand niece and nephew. I was up long before they were, so I made coffee and watched the sunrise over the mountains that ring this beautiful, remote area south of the city. A good omen of beauty and reminder of God's presence.

The kids are among the easiest children I have ever cared for. Sweet tempered, smart, smiling little creatures. The baby woke up, has never seen me before, and what do you think she did? She smiled.
She flashed me one of the sweetest, most angelic smiles I have ever seen, as though she was truly glad I was there to care for her. And two year old Gregory sat nearby quietly playing while I fed Riley, the baby. It was like a scene out of the Waltons. I didn't know such sweet people were still populating the earth.

Anyway, after I successfully returned the two delightful creatures to their now well rested Mom, (she works the night shift as a deputy sheriff), I headed off to the hospital to take arms against a sea of incompetence by my sister's side. I was not disappointed. Incompetence was still winning the battle. When I walked in, my sister was chatting with her head nurse. After 4 days now of acute pancreatitis, she had yet to see the gastroenterologist, (GI), who would be the appropriate doctor to oversee her case. The paperwork from her last few bouts of this had still not arrived, and no one seemed to be working on making that happen (besides her husband Jim and me.) She had had the MRI (finally) that morning to determine what was going on with her pancreas (after 4 days in the hospital...) but the internist who is not a GI specialist didn't really know how to read the results.

"How are you Amy?" I asked as I walked in.
I could tell on her face all was not well.
"Same old same old," she replied, reviewing the litany of ongoing neglect of her case.

"This has got to stop!" I cried turning to the nurse.
Amy and the nurse talked me down. This nurse, only on duty for the first time with Amy was on our side. She gave Amy the number for Patient Advocacy, and while Amy was leaving a voice mail with them, I went to the front desk with a number for the doc with Amy's records and told the nurse there I would wait while he called for her records. He called and told me if the records weren't faxed in an hour, he would call them back and let them know.

"I will be back in an hour," I told him.

Meanwhile, Amy and I waited for patient advocacy to call back. They didn't. Since the nurse wanted Amy strolling around to help keep her lungs and muscles active, we slowly walked down to the Patient Advocacy office. They were locked and closed. We wondered what advocacy group we could contact to complain about patient advocacy.

An hour later, I returned to the front desk.
"Did you get the fax?" I asked.
"No," he said, "They never called."
"You were going to call them," I reminded him.
He jumped up to go check the fax machine, returned shaking his head, and then looked down at his desk.
"Oh, here they are."
I asked that they be sent immediately to the GI doc we had requested, and I would return in half an hour to insure the doc had received them. The whole nursing staff did not smile at me. Little baby Riley could teach them a thing or two.

A half hour later, Dr. C, the GI doc, walked in. He had a ponytail, jeans, and casual shirt. The intern with him looked like a doctor. (I may be remembering the jeans incorrectly, but for sure he had a ponytail.)
"You look like GI people!" my sister cried hopefully. (That, or Vietnam vets...)
"We are," he said.
"Praise the Lord!!!" I shouted, raising my hands to the heavens, "There IS a God!!".
"Vicky, now is the time to be silent," reprimanded my sister.

I opened my wonderful new Surface Pro tablet and began taking notes of everything the hippie doc said. Looks can be deceiving. This doc knew his stuff. He had Amy's records in hand, had just received them, and as he went through them, noticed right away the salient issues, and took her future and treatment plan down the road to a whole new level. Instead of looking despairingly at a rather bleak uncertainty about these terrible attacks, this doctor laid out at least three very hopeful issues to check as causative, and also a treatment plan of pancreas enzyme suppression for down the road. He wrote out new orders for the staff to adhere to, and even said Amy could have clear broth today, the first food or drink in five days.

"You look like a new woman," said the kind nurse when she returned to check on Amy after the doc left. She was going off duty, and told us we had been fun and she had enjoyed working with Amy.
"Thank you so much," I told her, as she had been the catalyst in part behind things happening finally.
"And you were ready to battle me when you walked in," she reminded me.
"I thought you were part of the problem," I said.
"I was ready with Plan A," she said.
"I was plan B," I told her.

 I know many people been praying for my sister. I am a little too tired to come up with an amazing metaphor of how God is present in the symbols of life. But He is. He showed up yesterday in a ponytail and jeans.

It was a trying day. However it started and ended with a smile, and perhaps that is more than many people get.

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 Psalm 32: 10-11
10 Many are the sorrows of the wicked,
but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.
 11 Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous,
and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!