I thought I was hearing things this morning, I was multi-tasking so I first of all thought that the radio had somehow combined with a tape of audio book I was listening to but this is what I heard: “A 69 year old woman, pronounced dead by doctors and given the last rites, was tickled by a male nurse on her foot and awoke. She is now sitting up in bed talking to relatives”. I know these things have happened before: we heard a similar case last year with the wonderful story of the mother whose baby was pronounced dead but insisted on holding the baby for some hours who then came to life. Incredibly our first thought is not anger towards the doctors (well mine isn’t anyway) but a sense of wonder at the vulnerability of human beings. For all the white coats flapping and stethoscopes pouring out of pockets as they rush from births to deaths – it reminds us all how fallable we are and how, in this case, a simple “tickle” on a foot beat the bleeps and mechanical indicators of life that we all get wired up to at some point.
I soooo want to get a peek at the face of the male nurse who, despite everything in his vision that told him this patient was dead (there is nothing like a priest in his robes murmuring the last rites to confirm to us that all hope of life has gone!) reached out and tickled a foot. New heroes arrive every hour do they not?…………..
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