You are an Angel Miss Jasmine Vanilla

It was a beautiful Sunday for the widowed Mrs. Jackson, everything was normal as expected. Mrs. Jackson thought about how blessed she was to have such a wonderful life, a blessed day for a big black Christian woman.

Mrs. Jackson loosely held onto the steering wheel of her Subaru and wondered how she could make the choir better at her First Baptist Church on 5th street.

"Perhaps I should sing louder," Mrs Jackson said outloud to herself, "What do you think Jesus?"

She wasn't expecting Jesus to answer back but knew in her heart that she had felt him near at church when she bellowed out his praise in harmony with her other big black sisters in the choir. She got excited inside thinking about it.

"Praise the Lord!" she sang out loudly in the car. Her deceased husband used to joke around that she was so out spoken she couldn't do anything quietly. He would even joke that she is unable to even think to herself without speaking.

Mrs. Jackson stopped at the corner of Main and Singer Ave and put on her blinker on to turn right onto Singer Avenue, the street she resided.

After the required three seconds stop Mrs Jackson could not push the pedal to the gas of her car to make her go right and felt the overwhelming sense that she should turn left instead.

"If that is you Jesus," she said switching her blinker from right to left, "your will be done."

As the car advanced forward it became clear what she had to do. It was time to go the Emergency Room because something was very wrong and Mrs. Jackson could feel it, to deny such a feeling would be at this point insane.

Mrs. Jackson entered the Triage room of the Hospital, "I feel something is wrong with me," she told the triage nurse, "I don't feel right." then she remembered that she had forgotten to take her blood pressure medication.

"Well let's find out," the triage nurse put the maroon blood pressure cuff, the biggest size, on the delightfully obese christian woman.

As it squeezed Mrs. Jackson's arm tighter and tighter, Mrs. Jackson took in a deep breath, afraid to know what the damage was. Finally the machine beeped and the cuff started to deflate. She was afraid to look at the screen.

"235 over 112, Mrs. Jackson," the triage nurse wrote down the number, "follow me and I will take you to a room."

"Praise the Lord!" Mrs Jackson stood up making sure to grab her purse.

The ER room was small but Mrs. Jackson's fear was enormous. She thought of her grandchildren and the choir. How would they ever go on without her? She sat on the bed with clean white sheets and took a deep breath.

"Oh Lordy Lordy Lordy," she said exhaling out.

Within a few minutes a nurse appeared, "Hello Mrs. Jackson, I am Jasmine, I am going to be your nurse today."

"I know you will take care of me Miss Jasmine, you have a Biblical name," she said.

"I will do everything in my power, " Jasmine Vanilla handed Mrs. Jackson a hospital gown, "put this on, it will be easier for me to put the leads on for your EKG."

"Whatever you want," Mrs. Jackson looked into Jasmine's eyes, "I trust you."

Jasmine Vanilla placed stickers on the EKG leads and began to make everything ready to place in an IV and draw blood.

"I had a feeling I should come here," Mrs. Jackson layed back as Miss Jasmine placed the leads all over her patient's chest. "Thanks to the Lord Jesus."

"Hold still a minute," Jasmine said and pressed the button on the monitor to start the EKG analysis. "Relax."

Mrs. Jackson felt a sense of calm and realized today would work itself out.

"Alright, we are done," Jasmine pulled up a stool next to Mrs. Jackson and placed the tourniquet. "Now comes the not so fun part."

"Girl! you do whatever you need to do," Mrs. Jackson was surprised she trusted someone so much, a stranger with a needle about to stab her arm out of compassion. She reminded herself it was for her own good.

"Big Stick," Jasmine warned her patient and punctured the woman's dark skin. Jasmine remembered in Nursing school that she had always wondered how she would ever find a vein on a dark skinned person, she relied on sight so much. Not anymore, Jasmine trusted her sense of touch and located veins based on feeling. Not unlike the way she conducted her life lead by feelings instead of logic.

'Sometimes I don't make sense,' she thought to her self.

After drawing all the necessary blood and flushing the line out with normal saline solution Jasmine began her assessment as she took Mrs. Jackson's blood pressure once again. They laughed and smiled making the assessment as pleasant as possible. Mrs. Jackson was surprised that she could have such pleasure in the company of a stranger under the current circumstances.

"Well that is it for now," Jasmine took the chart and blood viles, "your blood pressure is 199/108. That is better then before, I will send the doctor in here to take a look at you."

"Praise Jesus for giving me such a great nurse!" the woman said with conviction. "My blood pressure is already coming down!"

"Well, Mrs Jackson," Jasmine smiled, "your blood pressure was probably more elevated in the triage room because you were nervous."

"I,for some reason, feel safe around you Miss. Jasmine," the big black woman said touching Jasmine's heart as she walked out of the room. At this moment she knew that several years of nursing school was worth the effort.

Jasmine Vanilla was touched by the woman. She had worked so hard to maintain the health and safety of all of our patients, but some of them just didn't appreciate it.

Jasmine placed the EKG on the chart and handed it to the ER doctor.

She was dreading going back into her other room, but felt rejuvenated by Mrs. Jackson's praise. 'I am a good nurse,' Jasmine reminded herself as she walked in the room, 'these people are just scared and upset.'

As she entered the room of her other patient she was bombarded with loud arrogant family members. Her patient was a peaceful, grateful and kind woman but her family were rude and unpolished. Jasmine wondered how such a kind woman could raise such a heard of animals.

Jasmine wished she could tell them all to f#$^ off but it wasn't in her nature. Jasmine was tolerant and had patience.

"Excuse me Ma'am!" one of the family members yelled at Jasmine, "what the hell is going on with our grandma!?"

"We are still trying to figure it out, we are running tests as we speak," Jasmine checked the vitals of her patient.

"YOU STILL DON'T KNOW!!" the inpatient family member yelled, "this is why I hate nurses!"

Jasmine was taken back by the comment and felt rage like fire inside her heart. She despised ungrateful people. She tried to think about Mrs. Jackson in the other room, her words echoing... "I feel safe around you."

She shook off the words of the ungrateful family member and wrote down the vital signs on her notes.

The nurse-hater's phone rang and she answered with, "No! they still don't know!!"

Jasmine Vanilla could hear the female on the other line yelling at the top of her lungs some kind of curse words directed to the medical staff. The words pierced with an ugliness that made her cringe.

"You want to talk to her?" the family member asked the woman on the phone and looked at Jasmine, "could you tell my sister what is happening to my mom on the phone!?"

"No, I'm sorry I can't give out medical information on the phone," Jasmine walked toward the door doing her best to flee the situation.

"You can't!" the woman screamed at Jasmine.

"No I am sorry," Jasmine clutched onto the medical chart, "I have to go now, I have other patients."

The family member put her sister on speaker phone and Jasmine was verbally attacked by a woman that she couldn't even see. It was the most appalling thing ever, insult after insult being thrown at Jasmine. A storm of hate and fear.

Jasmine had to leave the room. She tried to remember the kind words of Mrs. Jackson.

Jasmine Vanilla was relieved to go see her pleasant grateful patient in the other room.

"Praise Jesus!" the patient adjusted herself in bed, "you are back."

"Yes, and I have some medication for your blood pressure," Jasmine handed the woman a small pill, "it's small but it packs a punch."

"I hope you are right," Mrs. Jackson swallows the pill with water," God blessed me with a good nurse and a lousy doctor."

"Was he rude to you?" Jasmine asked remembering the rude family members in the other room.

"Oh yes," the patient replied, "but I am still glad I came in."

Jasmine knew the doctor was in all honesty a kind man, he probably was just recovering from the rudeness in the adjacent room. Sometimes these behaviors are as contagious as the common cold. Jasmine was sure that he wasn't intentionally being rude.

As it turned out Mrs. Jackson had more problems with her then just her blood pressure and Jasmine along with the MD were able to solve the problem and send Mrs. Jackson on her merry way.

Good things happen to good people. Was it Jesus that prompted Mrs. Jackson to come into the ER? OR was it a subconscious feeling knowing in the back of her mind that she had not taken her Blood Pressure medication? Or perhaps we are more in-tune to our bodies on a different level then we are able to understand. Whatever the case, there is something out there, feelings that tell us to go left instead of right. We just have to learn to trust those feelings.

"You are an angel Miss Jasmine," the woman yelled out to the nursing station as she walked out of the ER."