On this World Kindness Day, I’d like to share a story about one of my patients this morning. She was a very sweet lady, but she kept laughing—the nervous kind, not knowing what else to do or say and at nothing funny.
She laughed when I brought her into the room, when I asked her to change, and when I put the electrodes on her chest. She laughed every time I moved my probe position or the sound came on.
In our job, when a patient laughs, it makes it difficult to get good pictures. We usually need to wait until they stop to continue our exam. She laughed pretty much the whole time. Frankly, I was annoyed. Her incessant laughing was making my job harder.
When I finished the test, I stepped outside to let her get dressed. Our nurse practitioner was waiting outside my door and asked if she could use my room to talk to this patient. This isn’t normal procedure, I could tell something was wrong.
She had just received results on an exam she had ordered for a completely different reason. According to these results, this patient has what looks like cancer in her intestines and in her bones. And wasn’t aware yet. This was a new and incidental finding.
At that moment, all I could think of was wanting to go back in and hear her laugh again. Her day and her life was about to change.
Cherish laughter. Cherish kindness. We never know what people are dealing with or are about to.
The Love We Crave 