Family Bibles and chicken dinners: Physician writing contest

I was a new doctor, recently out of residency, eager and ready to fix the world, or at least my small corner of it. One of my first patients was Sara, an elderly woman with a quiet and sweet disposition who quickly became one of my favorites. She came in often, ostensibly for blood pressure checks but I suspected more often than not, simply to visit with my staff, to enjoy some human interaction, and socialization.

One day, Sara was scheduled as my last patient and I was looking forward to ending my busy day with an easy visit with a relatively healthy patient just needing a blood pressure check. Walking into the exam room, Sara was sitting pertly on her chair and her face bloomed into a smile when I entered. I helped her onto the exam table as her arthritis wouldn’t allow her to scale such heights without assistance. Sara kept a small yellow notebook that she used to dutifully track her blood pressure, each entry lined out in perfect pencil rows. As I looked over her log, I asked how her granddaughter’s soccer team was doing that year.

As our small talk wound down, Sara mentioned she’d scraped and bruised her shin due to a collision with a coffee table. I told her I would be happy to take a look at it and I bent down to help her remove her Velcro- fastened tennis shoes and the knee length socks underneath.

Her scrape and bruise were minimal but her toes were another issue entirely. Sara’s toenails had grown thick and yellow, curving sharply and painfully into the surrounding soft flesh of her toes. Noticing my reaction, she looked at me sheepishly and admitted that her arthritic fingers and back would no longer allow her neither to reach down, nor the strength necessary to trim her nails.

Nonplussed, I grabbed a fresh set of toenail clippers and scissors from my procedure drawer, made Sara comfortable on the exam table, and proceeded to trim Sara’s nails. We chatted amiably while I worked, discussing our mutual love of gardening, concern over an abnormally dry winter, and the way roses just didn’t smell enough like roses nowadays.

Sara thanked me profusely as I helped her slip back into her socks and shoes. As I waved off her thanks, I noticed tears welling up in her eyes. Concerned, I asked if she was all right. Sara then said something I would never forget: She was thankful for my care and shocked a doctor would take the time to do something as mundane as cutting a patient’s toenails. She said she was going to go right home and write my name in her Bible.

When I related this story to my husband that night, I was bemused that anyone would think so much of such a small thing. Is cutting toenails an act worthy of having one’s name inscribed in a family Bible? It would be years later until this question was answered for me in a very personal way.

 

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