A Sweet Unexpected Reunion

The other day I was seeing some sweet 5 year old little twin girls and was talking to their mom when she randomly said, “I remember you”. At first I was confused but then just assumed she had recognized me from church or I reminded her of one of my relatives because that is usually what ends up happening. However, she then went on to say, “I remember when you were my girl’s nurse back when my they were born premature in the hospital. You were that nurse that helped us when one of our little girls had stopped breathing for a couple of seconds and that was one of the scariest times of our lives”. At that point my mind immediately stopped and after getting over the complete shock that someone had actually remembered from my nursing days, what to seemed to be at first an impossible memory flooded back in to my mind and I remembered those little girls. I remembered taking care of them on a number of occasions both in the NICU and peds unit when they were not even 4 lbs. I remembered being a new nurse spending 12 hrs monitoring their heart rate, trying to what seemed like an impossible task of getting them to eat an oz of formula, and one time spending whole the night adjusting their oxygen as their breathing was all over the place. I also remembered that night when one of the girls was feeding with her parents and she stopped breathing for a couple of seconds. Luckily after much stimulation she came back to normal but that scared her parents a lot and I had to pull my own emotions together and help them.

Now you may think that it was a cool experience that she remembered me  but I don’t think you can fully appreciate the significance of it unless you understand where I was in my life during that time. Reflecting back 5 years ago I remember it was during that time that life was not so easy for me. I was up to my neck in grad school, working nights, and even had night mares of babies turning blue and hearing lots and lots alarms. One night I was caring for some of the little ones and I remember being tired and frustrated because I wasn’t sure what life was going to bring me, I wasn’t sure I could handle the stress of doing this work for much longer, and for some crazy reason I couldn’t see how I was making any difference for these tiny babies that I knew would never remember me anyways.  It’s amazing how satan can influence you when you are at a weak moment in your life and how he makes you think and feel things you know aren’t true. But through it all I remember praying and feeling a great since of peace and I knew that for some reason that was where the lord wanted me to be and that everything would workout.  Now as I look back at that experience 5 years later I bet you can imagine the feelings I felt as I saw those little happy healthy, talkative little girls. It was such a miracle to see that these tiny helpless premature infants had grown and become beautiful little people with their own distinct personality, thoughts, and opinions. It helped me better understand god’s love and the potential he sees in us even as little infants. In addition, I never thought in a million years anyone would remember me as their nurse, but somehow amazingly she did. I know he could have put a number of different nurses in the position that night to help that family but I am grateful for some reason the lord chose me. It’s amazing how life seems to come back around at you like it does. Thinking back to that time in my life I would have never ever imagined I would have become basically their doctor, yet here I am. It was a sweet reunion and I thank god for that tender mercy he gave me and the lesson I learned that day in my office. It was once again a confirmation to me that god really is in control and knows best what we need to learn, where we need to be, and that sometimes we do make a difference. I am grateful I was able in a small way to instrument in his hands for that family.