“She introduced herself and told me the story behind their visit. Apparently, her son had fallen and bumped his head earlier in the evening. He seemed fine, so she put him to bed at his regular bedtime. A few hours later, he woke up and vomited. I heard that throwing up after hitting your head is a bad thing, she said, so I brought him in.
“The mom was calm. She was fully dressed and completely made up, and it was 1:30 in the morning. If she took the time to dress, I wondered, how serious could it be? The little boy with her seemed quiet, but he understood everything his mom said. I asked her to put him on the table, and I began my exam.
“His pupils were equal and reactive. He was attentive and easily followed my directions. Where did you hurt your head? I asked. He point to the spot, and I felt it. It was a normal neural exam. He was a normal kid who’d gotten a bump on his head. I turned to write up his report, and I planned to ask the nurse to give the mother a head injury instruction sheet.
Well, his exam looks good, but I think we should send him to Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital to get a CT scan of his head.
“I had no idea why I said that. I wasn’t intending to say it, but the words slipped out of my mouth. I was confused. In that moment, I knew something more was going on. I left the examination room, and the nurse followed me. Why are sending a healthy child down there?
“I knew why she was asking. It was a big deal to find a neurosurgeon in the middle of the night. We would have to locate one who was on call and hope he called us back. Then we’d have to call Vanderbilt and make arrangements there. The nurse would have to order an ambulance to take them, and there was a ton of paperwork involved.
I don’t know, I responded honestly. God just told me to send him.
“The exam and all the evidence showed that the boy was fine. I couldn’t put my finger on it, literally or figuratively. It wasn’t as specific as a bump or a lesion; it was vague, like a temperature change while my fingers palpated the area of his injury. To this day, I’m not sure why I sent him, other than I’d touched him and felt something. Although I had no objective data to back up my referral, I had a sense that something was happening that only God could explain.
“If I were a betting man, I would have laid all my money that night on the likelihood that the neurosurgeon would call and say the boy was fine. Four hours later, he phoned. I’m not sure why you sent him, the neurosurgeon said.
I’m not sure either, I confessed.
Well, I’m glad you did. I just got out of surgery. We evacuated a hematoma from his brain. If you hadn’t gotten him here in time, he would have died.
“It was God who’d sent that boy to Vanderbilt, and he’d used my hands to make it happen. I thanked him not only for saving that boy’s life but for allowing me to be a part of his healing.”
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