Monday, October 18, 2004
Another "hopeless" case
Janice was born with a congenital heart condition that was supposed to have killed her before her fifth birthday. The doctors told my mother not to expect her to live. A specialist in downtown Detroit instructed her not to hope for a miracle, because miracles do not happen.
Our family practitioner, who paid house calls, on the other hand, said he had seen many miracles of healing in his many years of practicing medicine, so “don’t give up hope.” She grew slowly as a girl, one side of her body a little less developed than the other. I remember a few times she would pass out, grow limp and begin to turn blue after a hard fall as a toddler, and my mother would cradle her and press her and shake her to get her to wake up.
Janice was never healed, but she was a fighter. She attended public school, graduated high school, went to college and earned a degree in social work. She chose social work because the head of the nursing program told her she couldn’t physically handle nursing. After she ended up working in a nursing home as a aide, she decided she could handle nursing, went back to school and received her R.N. some time later.
Our family practitioner, who paid house calls, on the other hand, said he had seen many miracles of healing in his many years of practicing medicine, so “don’t give up hope.” She grew slowly as a girl, one side of her body a little less developed than the other. I remember a few times she would pass out, grow limp and begin to turn blue after a hard fall as a toddler, and my mother would cradle her and press her and shake her to get her to wake up.
Janice was never healed, but she was a fighter. She attended public school, graduated high school, went to college and earned a degree in social work. She chose social work because the head of the nursing program told her she couldn’t physically handle nursing. After she ended up working in a nursing home as a aide, she decided she could handle nursing, went back to school and received her R.N. some time later.
