A Few Words that Changed Me

“So, you’re here today about your blood pressure,” I said, my words trotting out. The key to a successful morning at a doctor’s office is to keep up the tempo. Fall behind schedule before 9 a.m. and you’ll have a morning full of grumpy patients waiting for you. I dropped onto the swivel chair and opened my laptop.

“Blood pressure looks great. How long have you been off the pills?” A couple weeks. She’d waited till after surgery like we’d discussed.

“Any new problems?” No, she felt great. Surgery had gone well. No other concerns. 

Photo courtesy of Megan Au via flickr.com (CC BY-ND-NC 2.0)

I closed my laptop and slid the stethoscope into my ears. I couldn’t believe my luck, this was going to be the quickest first-appointment-of-the-day ever.

“Sounds good. Hope you have a great week!” I stuffed the stethoscope into my pocket and headed for the door.

“One more thing…” she said.

I stiffened internally and turned around, preparing to hear about chest pain, sinus pressure, or any number of other things that would get me behind schedule. I tried to look relaxed while she kept talking.

“Last visit, you prayed that my surgery would go well—” Her eyes filled up with tears and it all rushed back to me. Breast reconstruction. An infection after her mastectomy. Cancer. “—and it meant so much—” She reached into her purse. “—I wanted to thank you.” 

She handed me a zebra print bag and threw her arms around me. I hugged her back, ashamed that I’d been so reluctant to hear her “one more thing.”

Back in my office, I shut the door and extracted an envelope from the tissue paper. “Thank you so much,” she’d written, “for allowing our Father to lead you in your profession.” I read and reread those lines. “…to lead you in your profession…”

I’ve heard a lot of sermons about following God. I’ve been encouraged to read my Bible every morning, guard my words when I get angry, roll out of bed on Sunday mornings when I’d rather stay under the covers. This was different. She was affirming the work God has work for me to do, not just in the moral arena, but in exam rooms where patient struggle with diabetes and strep throat. 

I reached into the bag and pulled out a shelf decoration, frosted glass in the shape of heart with teal and purple splashed all over it and a prayer etched onto the front. Tacky beyond belief. Two pounds of sheer grace laying heavy in my hand.

All I’d done was pray for her surgery. Less than a minute of my life. A few sentences. It had cost me so little I’d completely forgotten. But she’d gone to the store and paid good money for that zebra print bag, the card, and the lump of frosted glass. I cleared a spot at eye level on my bookshelf and placed her gift where I can’t miss it.  

Tomorrow I’ll pull on my white coat and fire up my computer, determined once again to stay on time, and when a challenging patient overruns their appointment by twenty minutes and my blood pressure starts to rise, hopefully that mass of purple and teal will remind me of her words and that my work matters to God, because it matters to people like her.