Ep. 18: Sending Out an SOS

0:06 Welcome to M4 Medicine, mystery, mayhem, and sometimes murder. I'm Andrea Marciano and RN with 35 years of experience across various fields. From direct patient care in hospitals to home health, geriatrics, and injury medicine, I face life, death, and everything in between. And I'm Crystal Miller and RN with 13 1/2 years of experience. My work spans home health, Hospice, emergency care, geriatrics, and occupational health. From the chaos of trauma based quiet moments with patients, I've seen stories that defy explanations. We've been friends for over 25 years and as nurses we've shared countless stories that have left us and our families speechless. Now we're bringing those stories and many more to you in medicine, mystery, mayhem, and sometimes murder.

0:53 Each week, we'll uncover cases that challenge the boundaries of medicine, sharing the human stories behind the science. From puzzling medical mysteries to shocking real life crimes, we'll bring you stories that'll leave you questioning everything you thought you knew while. We're both experiencing these nurses. We want to make it clear we're not here to give medical advice. This podcast is about storytelling, education and exploration, not diagnosing or treating medical conditions. This is medicine, mystery, mayhem and sometimes murder. Let's dive in. Hey Crystal, how are you doing? I'm doing pretty well. How are you? Well, I've been having a very exciting experience the last few days. I went to a patient appointment for my nursing gig and myself and a few other people in the patient were in a room doing the exam. And all of a sudden we all started sort of sniffling and coughing and sneezing.

1:44 And we all did it a little bit here and there during the exam. And then the next day I woke up and my eyes were hugely swollen and red and itchy and Bernie and I felt. Really, really terrible. So I treated myself for a day with antihistamines and ice packs and such. And then Saturday I woke up and I could not even open my eyes. So I went into the urgent care and I said I believe I have blephritis and an allergic response and he said I do too. And so he said do all the things you've been doing and I'll give you some Prednisone. So now it's we're recording on a Monday and I open my eyes now and I look normally a little better than I do, I think right now.

2:29 But as per your statement on the picture I sent you, I looked like I was 80 a few days ago. Yeah, you did. So for those, the best I can describe it is like she looked like she was. She looked very gaunt. And I think it's because her cheeks are swollen and then also very dark redness under her eyes. So it looked like. Yeah, just the swelling kind of played a trick with my eyes. It was, I mean, I could I because I'm a nurse. I can tell what it is as opposed to her just being 80 or looking 80. It is wild. It is and they've been intensely burning and intensely painful. And for a while on Saturday it I, I was a little photo sensitive to my eyes were sensitive to the light. So basically I shut my eyes and covered my face with an ice pack most of the day on Friday and Saturday and I am feeling a lot better.

3:20 But my voice. Still feels a little. Yeah, my voice still feels a little gravelly to me. And I don't have any idea what responded to because it's happened to me a while back, I think multiple years, I can't remember how, more than six or seven I think. And I had a similar response and had to have a similar treatment. And I don't like not knowing what it is because this is unfair. So but it didn't affect my breathing. I just feel a little hoarse, but I and I but I don't feel sick. I just that's really weird too. So anyway, I hope to look closer to my own age or 10 years younger here real soon. But my sister had seen a picture and she thought I had eyeshadow on on the top of my eyes, but I did it was just, it was just red.

4:03 I have had no no makeup on since Thursday. And I mean, and I do have a really intensive process of putting mascara on at any rate, but no, I, I haven't had, I haven't had anything at all because my, my eyes have been so irritated anyway. And I've been trying very hard not to be grumpy. But I can tell you that Max probably believes that I have been because I have been. All right, my dear. Well, what do you have for us today? Well, today I was talking to some friends about the title of our podcast. Actually, as I was talking to him about it, I thought wouldn't it be interesting to take on mystery from a different viewpoint? So we're going to talk about some things that people have reported happening to them that can seem inexplicable or serendipitous or just kind of mysterious. Mysterious, I guess really.

4:56 Like I can just use the same word, I guess, right. So I only have a couple of sources because the majority of this is anecdotal, right? This isn't a hard facts episode of my sources are a Guardian article called Kindness of strangers, people.com, Fox 13, Tampa Bay, the root Prison Fellowship, and then Reddit. There were I got some anecdotes from some subreddits about this kind of thing. So so I wanted to start with a story that happened to my to my to me, not to myself. I don't want bugging people. I don't know how that works grammatically, actually. Anyway, I want to start with a story that happened to me. It was early, it was the late 90s, about 1996 to 97 that time frame and I was single mom with a baby, you know, under a year old, working, living paycheck to paycheck.

5:47 I needed groceries, I needed baby necessities, you know, diapers, formula, things like that. And I knew how much it was estimate going to cost me because I bought, you know, I bought these things all the time I had just for the sake of like giving you numbers, I counted the cash in my wallet and I had around $70.00. I knew the groceries were going to be around $100, right? So in my desperation, I guess for lack of a better way of putting it, I decided I was going to float a check, right. And so for those of you that are younger and don't have a lot of experience in the 90s with checks, there used to be, oh, you still can, but not many people use it.

6:29 But you can write a check for money that's in your bank account, and that check becomes a promise of the money in your bank account to somebody. So somebody then can cash that check and they, the money comes out of your bank account and goes to them in cash, right? Hopefully that's a good enough explanation. But in the 90s you could also in the 90s if somebody cashed a check, there was not an instant transfer. We didn't have like like nothing like Venmo, nothing like PayPal. There were no instant transfers. It would take anywhere from 3:00 to probably 10 days for that check to clear when that money would actually be taken out of your account. So the person cashing the check could get the cash immediately, but then your check, sorry, your money in your account may not be taken out to cover that debt essentially for three to 10 days.

7:20 So I was, I recall correctly, it's been years obviously, but if I recall correctly, I was getting paid in three days so I felt like it was safe. It's also illegal, by the way, to fold a. Check, I was going to mention that this is an illegal. Action. I think in those days it did happen from time to time for people and you just really hoped it would take as long as you. Think it was exactly. Yeah, exactly. Most people who did it, I did it once, but I was so hysterical I couldn't do it again. When it's written, you just hope that your bank's going to be a little slow or if it's on a Friday and you have a whole weekend and hopefully the paycheck will hear anyway. It is illegal, so please never do this, but it's. It's so stressful because it's so stressful and you don't know the bank could suddenly for whatever reasons, it could go quickly and and then you know, you're screwed. So I just like I decided I was going to do it and I was going to hope and you know, pray, whatever. So I went to the grocery store.

8:13 I did my shopping cashier finished ringing up my groceries. The total was around $96, which is about what I had anticipated, right? So I grabbed the cash from my wallet and started counting it out to her to the cashier to get to the to the 70 ish dollars that I had. And then I'd already asked her if I could write a check for the difference and she'd said yes because that part's legal. Like if you, if you have money in your account, you can cover it with a check. That's, that's not a big deal. And so as I'm counting it out, I suddenly am going past 70, past 80, past 90. And I have and I have $96. Oh my goodness, Oh my. Goodness, my wallet never left my sight from the time I counted it. Like I could understand if it was like $20 more, $10 more, but it was $26 more.

9:01 I do not believe I would miss A20A5 and A1 counting right. To this day, I have no idea how that money got into my wallet because I counted it so many times before I went to the grocery store because I was like, you know, just hoping bills were stuck together or something. It just from the time I counted it the last time to the time I was counting it for the cashier, I had 26 more dollars. Wow. Wow, That's awesome. Isn't that crazy? I was, yeah. I was watching a one of those heart string puller things on Facebook, the reels for people who do stuff for other people and, and they go up and they pay for their groceries or something like that. All of a sudden for no reason.

9:41 I of course was bawling because you know, those things happen. And I've been in a similar situation, although I don't think I've ever had magical money appearing. I really like that idea. Yeah, You know, and there was a time I said I was religious. I thought, you know, it probably had something to do with God, but I'm not religious now. And so that actually makes it even harder for me to explain, honestly. But I guess the closest thing I can think it might be is that the universe just rearranged the molecules. That's the only thing. That's the only thing I can think of, you know, that that they took matter from somewhere else and turned it into dollar bills. I don't know. Yeah, and that's pretty wild. And, and I hear stories like that sometimes where it just happens to be exactly right or somebody finds a, a dollar amount on the ground and that's exactly what they needed to, to meet their requirements.

10:33 Yeah, that's cool. Or or stories of where like somebody finds some sort of story, right? Somebody finds money on the ground to meet the requirements they need out of good conscience. They turn it in wherever one turns it in, and then they get it back. Or the person who lost the money rewards them greater. I mean, these, like I said, they're all anecdotal, but so I really like a line I saw that just summed this up for me. Sometimes life is cruelly precise and sometimes life is mercifully precise, right? I like that all. But yeah, I like that a lot. What strikes me now, looking back, is how, like I said, precise. These moments are not wildly miraculous, not dramatic, just exact, exact enough and right on time. And when you start listening or looking for them, you realize how many people carry stories like this quietly, stories that don't make headlines, stories that happen under fluorescent lights with a line of strangers behind you and a cashier who may never know how close you were to breaking. So today I want to tell, like I said, some stories, some of these stories.

11:39 And it's not because money sells everything. It doesn't. I want to make that very clear, but because sometimes it keeps someone standing long enough to breathe again. Oh, that makes me tear up. So there's a story that circulated a few years ago from a woman shopping at a discount grocery store. She wasn't broke. She had money in her account, but the banking app wouldn't load. If you've ever had that happen, you know how fast panic shows up and the, and the feeling that, you know, everybody's getting madder and madder at me with every second. And, you know, I always like to, whenever I see somebody getting flustered in a, in any sort of line or, you know, thing like that, I always want to let them know, Hey, I'm in no hurry.

12:23 I try to live my life as much as possible in no hurry so that I can say that to people. Because I know, I know how stressful it is to feel like you're holding up everybody in line and, and to feel and to believe that they're getting madder and madder at you. And what sucks about that is that that just makes you more flustered and probably making more and more errors and mistakes, right? Right. And also it's embarrassing, I mean, cause anytime anything gets held up at the front, the cashier is, is saying your card was declined or something like that. It's like, oh, shoot, I've covered somebody when, when their card was declined because it just, it's just such a, such a heartbreaking moment.

13:03 It's happened to me before. And so I I try to pay it forward whenever I can. I do too. So this woman had two small kids with her. They were tired and they were hungry. And of course, the line is growing. And that, I mean, that also adds to it when you have kids that are just over it, right? Like, it's so that's another, that's another thing that adds on that makes it easy to get more flustered and make more mistakes. And it's just a horrible cycle. So she tried using her banking app again. Nothing would not go through. She explained. She apologized. She felt that familiar heat of shame, even though she'd done nothing wrong. And then the woman behind her quietly stepped forward and paid for the groceries. No lecture, no performance, just paid.

13:45 When the mother tried to refuse, the woman said something simple. That someday, when she could, she should pass it along. So the pay it forward, right? And later, that mother did. Not with money at first, but by giving away baby items to someone else who needed them. And that's how these things ripple. And I think that I really like this story because it wasn't like the next day the woman got in line and then paid some of these groceries. She saw a need that she was able to fill and she filled it. And for any of us who've had babies, we know, I mean, my story was about baby items even, right? We know how expensive baby items can be and how difficult to to obtain they can be and cost prohibitive they can be. And so things like car seats expire, but other than car seats and formula, you can pass almost anything down for generations and generations and generations. And I think that that that's not only good for us as people, but it's good for the planet, you know, absolutely. So, and then I think about how thin and the line is between having enough and not being able to access it. You know, when a lot of times when we think about that concept, we think about millionaires, rich people who can't liquidate their assets.

14:54 So they're rich, but they're cash poor. But the reality is, is that first of all, one thing. So when we talk about a rich person who's cash poor, you know who's rich because, but it's, it's illiquid and they're so they're rich, but they're cash poor. We don't give them a moral judgement. We don't, we don't say they have a character flaw. It's just a fact of matter. But then when we have the woman at the grocery store who's saying, I promise I have this money account, I've said that before. I promise I have this money in my account, suddenly there's a moral judgement that it's as if there's a a glitch. And sorry, excuse me, it's as if that glitch is a character flaw for them. And it's like, if I know anything, my job is supporting software, right?

15:44 Enhancements, new features and bugs and bugs in software, glitches in software never cease to astonish me because it feels like to my logical brain that that shouldn't be possible to happen, right? You put something in the computer, does it? The way you program it get the output you programmed for right? So why is the computer in the program can do it 1000 times the way you programmed it to and then the thousand and first time is just like Nah? Right, not interested I. Understand that. And so we, you know this, my call to action at this moment is like, let's be patient. Let's remember especially, especially in our current era of technology overload, that it's not always the person's fault. It's not always the person's actions that are causing it so. Yeah, true.

16:45 I I was just going to say I had an experience when I was at a grocery store and I had money. I had money in my account. Everything was good and like you were just like you were just talking about when I rent. It was a place that only took debit cards at the time and I think the store still only takes debit cards or cash. I had my debit card and absolutely had the money I have been paid. I had a good job, everything ready. I had a whole bunch of stuff is around Christmas time. I was getting gifts for people and all of the things and it didn't work. The lady said your card and declined. And it always seems like in those moments it sounds like they're yelling it from the rooftops. And I said no, I have the money. I really have the money. And she said I'm sorry, it's not going through. So I had to go to customer service. I walked over with my big old cart of stuff and went to customer service and we tried to call the bank and the bank's number was down and there was clearly a problem at the bank and I had to walk out.

17:38 I had to leave the groceries. I had to walk away. I was devastated. Also, like I said, especially because I had the money. It was a bank problem, but it was mortifying because I look like a loser to have to go to customer service and haul it all over there. And I said, I'll put it back. And they said, unfortunately now this has been out too long. I, we can't return it to the, to the shelves, the stuff that was partial. And then I felt worse because really I didn't, I wasn't trying to pull a fast one or anything like that. And I certainly would have taken stuff if they had if I had had the money with me. I said I can go and try and get cash, but the store was closed. All of the things were poor alignment in my circumstance, but I had to leave. And then I didn't get the stuff I needed, of course.

18:20 And then I had to go stuff. But I didn't go back to that grocery store for a while because I was mortified. And and it really, truly been a bank problem. They had sent an an e-mail out saying they had had some glitch and they apologized. I'm like, yeah, well, you weren't standing in the line. I but I was so upset. And yeah, anyway, go ahead with your. Another story comes from Walmart in Texas. A woman reaches the register and realizes she doesn't have enough. Her total is over $100. She's upset. She's trying to decide what to remove. She's already shrinking in on herself. That makes me like also tear up because people don't you. Shouldn't you have to feel that way? And the cash a 19 year old kid does, someone expects he pays for it out of his own pocket.

19:04 Greater when and why? He says he just felt like the right thing to do. Not heroic, not calculated, just human. Just human. So I'm a robot, just human. That's awesome. What? Gets me about this story is not just the generosity, it's the power imbalance. He was the one in control of the moment. He could have hurried her. He could have made it worse. Instead, he made it about kindness. That's awesome. Just for contrast, I'm going to share a story of a time when help was refused. There's another story shared years later by a witness about a woman using assistance benefits who came up short at the register. I'm going to just pause for a moment to go on a little bit of a rant about assistant benefits.

19:52 I have been on WIC and I have been on food stamps for many, many years. I'm no longer on them. I don't need them, thank goodness, but I have been a recipient of food assistance. And let me tell you, I don't know because I haven't been on it for so long. I don't know what people are experiencing today, but there was open hostility for WIC recipients when they were in a grocery line, open hostility for food stamp beneficiaries when they were in in a grocery line. And it was the most embarrassing, heartbreaking thing because I had to feed my children. Well, if I remember well, yeah, most people do, or many people do.

20:37 And if I remember with the WIC program, it used to be that there were papers and you had to fill, you had to get 4 ounces of this and 12 ounces of that. If it was wrong in any way, then it got denied. The wrong brand, if it was the wrong sign, you have to go take it back and get another one. So that's what would happen is it wasn't, you know, it was a confusing, convoluted process with papers that if you if you didn't understand it and you were just guessing, you might get it wrong. And it's not like also it's not like you could walk up to a store employee and be like, can you please help me shop for my WIC vouchers? Because they're going to say no, Nobody ever said yes to me. Or they'd walk me over to one, walk me over to the serial section and show me the sticker that says WIC approved and then walk away like OK, thanks I guess.

21:24 Right, yeah, and I see the little signs on things. I see the little signs on things sometimes, but I think everything's in a card format now, but I don't have. Oh, I'm. Sure it is. It's it's not 1990. Because right? 2001. Because I remember I had a friend who was on it, they lost their papers and they couldn't get the food. They just, they wouldn't reissue them. They wouldn't do anything. And there's record, there was record on it too, whether it'd been spent or not. But they said no, you might want to use it later or you'd do it wrong or whatever. So she just didn't get groceries? I was three days out from AC section and had to go get my own WIC because it had to be signed and counter signed by the same person. So you get your when you would get your vouchers, you would sign them there in front of the WIC representative, and then you would sign them at the register and the signatures had to match. My mom was there.

22:14 She could have gone and got those groceries for me. Oops. Except Nope, because she can't sign my name like I do. And like, it was awful. I mean, no shade to Wick, by the way, I love Wick. Thank you so much. Wick fed my children for many, many years. I'm just saying it's, I'm saying the government kind of sucks. Really. Bureaucracy sucks. That's. Another whole show. So this woman came up short and she was using food assistance. Another shopper offered to cover the difference and the cashier refused to allow it. What worse, the cashier did not refuse to allow it because it was against store policy. They did it because they were judging them, judging her. The situation escalated.

22:57 The woman was embarrassed publicly. Whether every detail is remembered perfectly also doesn't matter because the core truth does. Sometimes the difference between dignity and humiliation is one person's choice in a small moment. And I see that so much in the world of just so many times people can choose. I mean, there's, there's lots of choices we can make, right? And if we want to just really, really, really break it down, you can choose kindness, you can choose neutral, or you can choose unkindness. And it's sad to me how many people choose unkindness rather than just neutral. Like walk away dude, just walk away. And what does he care who's paying, I mean. Right.

23:39 Exactly what does he care? Why? Why does that matter to you? And I would imagine, obviously I wasn't there, but I would imagine that it was a power trip of some kind. It goes back to that. It actually goes back to that power dynamic that we were talking about with the 19 year old cashier that paid the bill. He used his quote UN quote powers for even. For. Unkindness. Well, I always wonder what when a person acts in an unkind way, I think it's usually based on some sort of an experience. What brought them there? Experience or upbringing, I think, you know, some people are just brought up to be racist, for example, or classist or sexist or all the other ists.

24:23 And that's a hard, that's a hard habit to break. That's true. And especially like you say, if they've been brought up and they just don't, don't have other perspectives perhaps in the scenario, because I think you and I both had the perspective of being on the short end of the stick. So we might look for opportunities to assist someone where someone who had never had any real trial. It hadn't. And I the the reals I was telling you about that. I was watching last night. One of them, there's this man who goes around, I can't recall his name, but he pays for people's bill or his their groceries. But in this case, he walked up and he said to the man at the checkout, he was self checkout. So this man was just checking his own stuff out. He said, Hey, I'm a dollar short to buy this food. I haven't had anything to eat all day. Would you would you buy it for me? Would you lend me the money?

25:12 And the guy's like, no, why, Why would I do that? And then the, the rich guy said, well, have you never been hungry? And asked him a few questions. And finally the guy said, you know what, let me get it for you. And the rich guy didn't end up paying for the other guys groceries, but he said, boy, that was hard. We're getting you there. And he said you had a little, you had a little mustard seed of maybe, but mostly we had to build that seat up. And now maybe you can remember to make it come faster next time or something along that line. But he gave him 5 or 6 opportunities to say yes and give him reasons to say say yes, but he had to fight hard for it. And then the guy was a little bit, he wasn't, I don't think he was upset. He didn't look like he was upset.

25:52 But I think he realized that he had been a little bit of a jerk, especially because the guy was only asking for a couple bucks. It's not like it was a million. But you know, on a daily basis, depending on where a person lives, they can be approached by hundreds of people if they're in the cities and give me your money, give me your money. Give me your money. And this guy even said I could pack your groceries into the bag for you to pay for it to earn it. Right, right, right. And I think that's when he started to soften a little that the guy wasn't just saying I'm here for a handout. But for a free handout, yeah. Which, by the way, I'm not. I don't necessarily think handouts are so bad. But anyway, I digress. Yeah, great. OK, go ahead. What's up? What else do you have? OK, so one of the most, one of the most fun stories I found was about somebody who went to a store intending to help another person. She knew she had a specific amount to give. She didn't have the person in mind beginning. It wasn't like she's like, I'm going to go to the store and help Mary Smith.

26:45 She said, I'm going to go to the store, I'm going to observe and then I'm going to help somebody. So she did that. She observed, she found somebody that she felt like was the right one to help. And when the groceries were total, it came out to exactly what she had. No more. So yeah. So that detail, that exactness is what people remember because it mirrors our own stories. We don't need excess miracles or excess kindness. We need just enough. Just enough. And then this is from a Reddit thread. A woman described being a broke single mother herself when she saw someone else at the register start removing items. She didn't have much, but she had enough to cover the difference.

27:26 She offered later. She said what stayed with her wasn't pride, it was recognition. That could have been me and that has been me. And again, that's why if I see a scenario like that where I can cover something because I have been there and I have now. I have disposable income now, right? Like I can help people and so I, I make it a point again, but I mean, this is, this is more about money, but I, I make it a point to pay it forward. And I'm paying, you know, I'm paying a debt that I, that I acquired in the, in the late 90s and 2000s. And that's fine with me. And I don't see it as a debt I shouldn't like I want to make sure that I don't, I don't want anybody to feel like taking assistance or kindness or whatever is a debt.

28:12 But I'm happy to pay it forward and I'm happy to pay. I'm happy that I can pay it forward, even if it has been 20 years or, you know, had been 20 years before I could. I just, I, you know, it really struck me that this has been me, that statement of this has been me. I have been this person and I know what it feels like and. I. Know how I don't want them to feel? And then sometimes, very rarely, these moments open doors no one expects. One story describes a woman whose card kept declining. Someone paid for her groceries. They talked. That conversation led to a job opportunity, which led to training, which led to nursing school, which led to a nurse.

28:53 One moment of help didn't fix everything, but it changed the direction. And I think that that's another my dad, you know, my dad, he loves to he loves to talk to everybody and loves to get to know people. And if he, he takes Donuts to the post office, for example, and if he knows that, you know, if you're a cashier at the local grocery store and he knows that your favorite candy bar is a Snickers, he's going to buy a candy bar. Sorry, he's going to buy a Snickers when he's checking out at your register and he's going to leave it with you. Right? That sort of thing. And I think that my dad's a really good example of a good ripple effect because he has, he's done a lot of really dorky, dumb things, but he's done a lot of really, much, many more really good things. And, and, and you can, you know, you can, you can if you were to stop and, and pay attention and actually look for it, you can see that his ripple truly covers the globe just from from little things like taking his nieces and nephews skiing to set, you know, sending school supplies to Kenya to holding a charity fundraiser ball, dancing ball.

30:06 That's not what it's called Masquerade ball. Masquerade ball. I'm like what? All these. Things and and then, you know, never is he doing this like, hello. I would like everybody to notice that I, Ron Hatfield am doing. I just named him. I guess that's probably OK. He's old. I'm doing all these things. See me praise me. It's all under the radar. It's all like just you know, now it's not taking his nieces and nephews skiing and fishing. It's taking his grandkids and you know, he just quietly will say, hey, Chris, you want to go fishing and they go. And you know, my mom may put it in her Granny Graham that she sends out. You know, Sonny told me about the Granny Graham.

30:47 Sorry if you hear this. She said that only the only the grandkids read it. Their kids don't read it. I read it. I read it too. She was wrong about me, but you know I will admit that I read it to see what silliness my mom has shared. Yeah, it's just. Skip over all the churchy stuff. I'm all church, church, church, church, church. OK, here we go. What's going on with Harmony? Yep, Yeah, but you're right. I mean, I think that your dad, especially when your mom too by by proxy, if you will, supports, supports those things and they always have as long as I've known them. And the quiet, to me, the most important, I'll just call them acts of service because that's what they they are the most important acts of service of the cry. It acts of service in my view, because they don't, they don't come with strings attached because it can be so hard to know that someone's giving you something with a string attached.

31:47 And then if there's something that has to be done to pay it back. And that, that feels even harder sometimes, at least for me, because then I know that I'll always owe them somehow, and that is hard for me. Right, that is hard. I agree and. Maybe it's a pride thing, but it is a hard thing. Yeah. Well, and there are, there have definitely been sometimes when opportunities or acts of service have been offered to me and there were strings attached and they either blew up in my face or I chose not to receive that, you know. Yeah, just because it it the cost was too high. Yeah, exactly. I wanted to ask you if you have any stories of your own that are like this, Like specific stories where something happened that improved your life and you couldn't explain it.

32:38 Specific thing, you know, actually one of the things that happened that improved my life happened when I first became a nurse and in an RN in 1992 and I was a single parent. As you know, I had just graduated. You didn't know me then yet, of course, but I, I just graduated and I had applied for this job and it was going to be perfect because my kids were little. I could work from home, go out to patient appointments and then come back and I could do the report writing whenever I could. So it the hours are horrendous because I got up early, stayed up late and but I didn't have to do child care, but a couple of hours a day and it was going to be perfect. And then my nursing board results back in the dark ages when we wrote them and we had to wait two weeks to get the results.

33:35 It wasn't immediate like it is now. And my results had gotten delayed. It took six weeks. The papers had gotten lost somehow and I knew I had passed. I felt really, really confident that I had passed. I wasn't worried about not passing, but I had to prove it to get this job. And my employer said I can give you 2 weeks and then I have to fill the position. And I called her and I said I don't have it yet. And I called the board office because that was not, I couldn't even look on the computer yet. It was too early history. And they said they couldn't find the results, that they'd be pending, they'd come anytime. Six weeks. It took my manager at the five week mark called me and said I'm really sorry.

34:17 I can't hold this job anymore. We're, we're in a lurch. And I said, I understand. I mean, I, I can't change anything. And the money from the job was going to be really good. I have no idea what it was at the time, but it was a good paycheck that especially since I could work from home and nursing jobs back then were almost never a home job. And it was when case management was brand new and we didn't really know what we're doing. But we figured it out. And I said, OK, I understand. And I hung up the phone and I started to bawl so hard. I cried and cried and cried. Didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't have a backup job because I thought I'd get this one and I had no money and all of the things. And then about 3 minutes later, my phone rang, maybe not even that long.

34:58 My phone rang again and said, OK, here's what I want you to do. It was the manager. She said, I want you to go make sure your kids are safe because they were little Jules was like, I don't know, maybe a year or less. And so Josh would have been close to four, I guess, and 3-4, whatever it was. Yeah. And. And she said, I want you to make sure your kids are safe. And I want you to get in the shower and I want you to cry as long as if you need to, but don't let your kids see you crying right now. Because she didn't want my kids to be upset. She said, but I'm going to give you some more time. And she gave me another another week and my board results came. I passed everything was great. And I promised her, I said, you hire me, I will be the best nurse you've got. Boy did I work for the pets.

35:39 And I ended up in the first year being it was based on chart billing and stuff like that. And I was the highest revenue generator in all of California because I was working really hard. And she said that she knew from the moment that she hired me that I was going to be worth it. And she said I just kept feeling, even though my brain said don't wait because I don't have time, because then she would have had to hire someone else. It was a whole process. It would have been at least another couple weeks, she said. But I just, my heart kept saying, I've got to wait. I've got to wait. And she did and it was worth it for both of us. But Oh my gosh, it was so stressful and she didn't have to do it, but just something in her said it was going to work out and, and it did. And it changed, probably changed what I ended up doing for nursing for most of my career at that moment. And I still did other stuff.

36:27 But at that time, that was my main job. And it it impacted me so much because I knew that she could have easily just said, no, sorry, too bad. But she cared enough that she called back, told me how to take care of myself and and ended up giving me the job. So it was it was perfect. Yeah, it was. That's awesome. I have another experience where Liberty and I were in Germany and we were 12 and 15 years old, navigating Germany on our own. Makes sense to me back in the day and that was normal. Hello Gen. X. Oh my God. And we, we. Should be fine. Everything's good. We.

37:08 Were in the yes, we were in the railroad in at the Ubon. Station maybe? Yeah, yeah, yeah. At the Ubon, I was trying to remember the name of it in German. So we went to Ubon and we actually needed to go to the long distance railroad. And so the Ubon was it was in one spot and then you would go down a little further, like underground a little further and get on to the like long distance cross country, intercontinental, whatever you want to call it, not intercontinental, but cross country and well, intercountry. Like you could go from Germany to Belgium for example. But anyway, in this case we were staying in Germany, but we were going far enough that it was like a four hour train ride or something like that.

37:51 Yeah, I can't. I'm just trying to imagine you your age is going, oh, this is fine. And barely speaking the language. Oh my gosh, I'm just having hard conversations over that. So we're on the, we're on the, gosh, why can't I remember any train station terms? We're on the platform and clearly looking very confused and my and all of a sudden this man walks up to us and he's like says something in German. And we're like every time we all speak English. And he was like, where are you trying to get to? And we told him I think we were trying to get to Frankfurt from Hamburg. And if my timing and stuff is wrong, it was a really long time ago.

38:33 OK, just and he was like, you're on the wrong platform and the other, the platform you need to get to is 6 over. But The thing is, is you couldn't just go like 6 over. You had to go all the way back up into the terminal that supported both the trains and the ubon run the six things, six lanes and then back down into the onto the platform that you needed to be. And so we barely made it to our train. And the fun thing about that fun, I don't know. But the fun thing about that is that it that same exact moment, my mother had woken up in the US and had had this feeling of like something's wrong with the girls. And so she just said a quick prayer like, you know, I know something's wrong with the girls. I don't know what it is.

39:20 Please help them in this moment. And that's then this guy walks up to us. Now I know that, you know, girls looking confused can be explained away by you. Girls were looking confused the DOI, but I like to think that there was a connection because it because it was at the same time. And and I think that I just I think that that's how the universe works, right. I think that there's just, I've heard a lot of times statement, you know, the universe is for you, meaning the universe is on your side. And a lot of times I think that people don't believe that or remember that. And, and I also think that there's karmic things that, you know, the universe has no control over because you created them for yourselves. But All in all, I think that if we remember the universe is for us or is on our side, we'll start to see more and more of these little, for lack of a better word, miracles or or acts of service that.

40:16 You know, unexplicable or so just out of the ordinary so. Yeah, there's there's another one that I wanted to bring up because we've talked about things that were very far in history that makes me kind of wondering for before just not noticing them as much now, now that we're older. But there's something that happened to Juliana, my daughter, last week. She had driven, she lives in Arizona, as you know, and she drove a friend of hers to Flagstaff for doctor's appointment. And she had parked outside the building, as one does usually, and she was standing inside the foyer there. Her friend had already gone in, I guess, and she was standing in there looking out the window and saw a man barrel his truck into her car. And it told her arm.

41:01 And she said it pushed her car from the lane it was parked in up over one of those little curbs, you know, that are on the side over that into another parking space. And then it was angled. And she said she just watched it and there was nothing she could do. And she said it was devastating because, you know, most people don't have a ton of money to replace a car at will. And she saw this guy get out and he was an older guy and he, he had hit his chest very hard on the steering wheel and she ran out and other people ran out. And it turned out what had happened is because one thing that most people think of, and I did at first is a medical emergency. Maybe he was having a heart attack or stroke or whatever, but he wasn't. But what had happened is his accelerator pedal had gotten stuck, literally physically stuck, and it was still stuck. When the investigator, the police investigator came to look, it was stuck down.

41:54 The only reason it stopped is because they turned it off. He had hit two or three cars prior to Juliana's before he had hers. And she said the thing that was most astounding about it is that her car was what kept him from going into the building and hitting people inside. And because it stopped, his finally stopped his momentum because I guess he was trying to break too, but the accelerator just wasn't having it. And I'm not really sure if he turned off his car at that point. I don't remember know exactly how it stopped, but her parked car gave the block that kept him from going into the building. And it looked like it was only 5 or 6 more feet and he would have been inside. There were people sitting there. She wasn't sitting there because she was kind of to the side, I guess looking, but she was just almost hysterical when all of this happened and it hit the driver's side of her car because she had backed in. So she, if she had been in the car, would have been at least hurt.

42:49 And if her kids have been in the car or husband or whatever, it could have been much more devastating. As it was, it was a huge ginormous inconvenience because her husband had to drive to get her in Flagstaff, which is 2 1/2 hours each way and blah, blah, blah. But it turned out that the investigator who was looking at it said that he had the same kind of car and he was going to go check his because he said he wondered if it was some sort of some sort of global failure for this particular vehicle in the year. And it was an older truck sort of thing. But. And she said the guy ended up looking like he was OK and the other vehicles he hit were unoccupied as well. He was the only one that obtained any injuries, fortunately, in the scenario. But that's one of those moments that if any one of those things had gone differently, the outcome could have been completely different as well.

43:39 It was bad enough having damage, but nobody, I mean, most people consider the vehicles not good, but not as bad, of course, as hurting or killing other people. So that was last week, Gowser. Wow, no kidding. I know. And she for three days just said really struck her. I mean, it was just really hard for her because she knew it's all those what ifs that you think about later going, Oh my gosh, what if this, what if that? And as it was, they had just gotten a new specialized car seat for Yoshi because of her cerebral palsy and it was damaged. And you know, once it's been in an accident, it can't be used because it is compromised. And so now they have that to deal with as well.

44:19 But they did have her old one, so they at least can keep her safe until it's replaced. And, you know, they're doing all the whole insurance things and everything else. But and so it'll take a minute to resolve, but but it could have been completely devastating. Yeah, absolutely. So I've said it before. I just want to say it again. As we come to a close, we don't talk enough about the humiliation of having to put groceries back. The eyes, the silence, the way time seems to stretch. People who've been there never forget it, and people who haven't often underestimate it. And this isn't about budgeting lectures. It's about survival moments. I keep thinking about that version of me in the early 90s, counting cash at a grocery store, about how close I was to needing grace from someone else, and how that day the universe handed it to me quietly, in exact change. If you're listening and you've been there, I see you. If you're listening and someday you're the one who can step in. Do it gently.

45:15 Do it quietly. Because most people won't remember what was bought, but they will remember forever how it felt to be spared. I gave me chills. Oh, me too, crying. Oh, that's, that's beautiful. And I just feel like in our climate now, in our society, I think people more often respond in a way of like, wait, why are you doing this? What's the catch? There was one woman I saw in these reels. It's kind. I mean, this is kind of ironic. And part of the story, I guess, is that I was watching all these reels last night about this sort of topic. One of that's another. Little, not from the universe, I think. I know so exactly because I don't normally sit there and watch him. I'm bawling. And yeah, but this one woman, this person had come up and paid.

46:00 And the woman's woman said I'm not worthy of that. And the clerk said you absolutely are. And the clerk didn't have anything to do with, I mean, the clerk knew that this lady was there paying for stuff for people. But the clerk said, no, you are worthy. And the person just looked at her like, Are you sure? You know, she and and she just kept saying thank you. And the lady who paid for it was nearby. But she came in and out so quickly that the people didn't necessarily know who she was. And the clerk said she's just an Angel. She's an Angel who comes to. That's so sweet. It is, I feel like the woman who said she wasn't worthy of it, I feel so sad about that because people are sometimes when they're in situations of air quotes need, like you said in the beginning, are treated so poorly sometimes.

46:49 Yeah, there are people that make the choice of taking advantage of the system, but I think that's much more rare than we. We are made to believe that most people are just in a tight spot and they're doing everything they can. And many, many people who get these services are working at least one full time job and sometimes more and still can't make it. And so that I think is where that grace comes in for the rest of us to remember that, like you said, and to look for opportunities. Even if we can't provide money per SE or something like that, at least we can provide the kindness and the gentleness that the people need and that we all need for one another, even if we don't look in a bad situation. There's one.

47:30 There's an artist I had used to listen to. Oh yeah, he, his name is Michael McLean. And he had a lot of songs that were, you know, the heartstring kind of polar songs. And the one song, it had a line in it and said everyone is fighting their own private wars. And I've always remembered that both for myself and for other people because most of the time we have no idea what people are dealing with. I remember when I had to go shopping right after I got my cancer diagnosis and my entire world had shift started shifting. I didn't yet know how it would shift, but I knew it was shifting, doing a normal thing. And people are treating me like a normal person. And inside me was yelling, it's not OK and things are not OK. And but I mean, I'm not going to stand there and yell that even though my inside yelling that that we're all in situations like that even sometimes on a daily basis for moments at a time going.

48:20 How could this be when other people cannot see and do not know? And that's where I think that's when we do the human kindness thing is just assume that this person may have done this for something that has nothing to do with the situation at hand. Because often we don't. We may react in a way that makes no sense to anyone else, but they also don't know the story that's going on in our hearts and our heads. Yeah. Thank you. That was very touching. We must be feeling very sensitive at this time of year, since we must be. We've got a couple of topics. Also, we had committed that we wouldn't do murder on every episode, which we ever want to do. But yes. But I do like this because some of these mysteries are not explainable and really I don't want them explained a lot of times.

49:05 Yeah, I don't. I don't need them explained. So just to know that that these things happen and that people are peopling in a good way is really nice. Thank you. This is is just a nice uplifting moment. Yeah, and if you have stories like this you'd like to share, we would love to hear them. Oh, and one thing I was going to tell you is that there have been a few people that have become our loyal listeners that have had questions and they're going to start asking us. So you know how we say we read our emails? We probably better. Mostly. Mostly we will try anyway so. We will read every e-mail. All right. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. All right, if you've made it this far, clearly you like a little mayhem with your medicine. Or you just enjoy hearing us ramble about weird medical mysteries.

49:53 Either way, we'd love you for it. So hit that follow or subscribe button wherever you're listening. And toss us a rating or review while you're at it. Helps other curious weirdos find the show. And we know there are a lot of you out there. Oh so many. Come join the chaos. Thanks for listening to Medicine, Mystery, mayhem, and sometimes Murder. Do you have an idea for an episode of this podcast? Just want to say hi? You can get in touch with us at our M4 pod. That's OURM thenumberfourpod@gmail.com. We read every e-mail, and sometimes we even respond just like real professionals.

50:34 Because we are. Old friends with new twists and lots of body bags.