His Mysterious Ways

We've all heard the saying, "God works in mysterious ways", well I just wanted to share a testimony, if you will, of a patient in our clinic that shows just how great the Lord can be. *Disclaimer: No names are being used in this post, therefore, no HIPAA violations! (for all those healthcare employees reading ;-). Anyhoo... So I work in the lab at a very large VERY busy physician's office and my boss is constantly getting on us about making sure we get the blood samples in the right racks so that we don't make any mistakes and miss performing any of the ordered tests. Well, lately, we've been battling the problem of our hemoglobin A1C samples (a test used for diabetic patients to test their average blood glucose levels over the past 6-8 weeks) often get placed in our CBC (complete blood count; often used to monitor the number and efficiency of the blood cells in the body) rack. She has been hounding us I know for the past 4 months, because this has been an ongoing problem, and up until the hiring of new employees just 2 weeks ago, we had it pretty much under control and the problem was becoming nonexistent. Well, last week we had a patient to come in and her doctor ordered an Hgb A1c. Wouldn't you know, it got placed in the CBC rack. Before the mix-up was discovered the CBC had alreeady been done. It turns out this lady had a 5 gram hemoglobin. To simplify it for those non-medical people, that means bad. A normal hemoglobin for a woman is between 12 and 15 g/dL. Most people who have a low hemoglobin its only down 1 or 2 grams. Even for me, having sickle cell anemia, my normal hemoglobin is around 8-9, which would have most of yall sick in bed and not able to lift your heads! So 5, especially on someone considered "normal" is definitely NOT good! We being the great laboratorians that we are *smile* notified the patient's doctor and informed her of what we discovered (by mistake). The doctor called the lady back in and asked her if she was experiencing any lightheadedness, fatigue, or bleeding. The lady tells her doctor that she has had some rectal bleeding, but she didnt think it was that serious, so she didnt mention it earlier. The doctor referred the lady to one of our GI (gastrointestinal) physicians for a consult. After a series of tests, the GI Doc discovered that the lady's bleeding was the result of colon cancer! Only by the grace of God, the cancer, which was malignant, had not spread to any other parts of her body. It was caught "just in the nick of time". Which means that it could be treated and "cured" with surgery, which she was scheduled for earlier this week. Now if that doesn't prove that our God is an on time god, then I don't know what will. That lady came in to thank all of us in the lab for saving her life, but I (and I hope she did/does too) just want to thank God for being so wonderful and I hope that this TRUE story can be a testimony and encouragement to you that God can and will see you through all the storms you face and that no matter what your going through he will be right there with you! (End of sermon) *smile*