A long time ago - half-century, in fact - I was running up the staircase at school to make second bell, when I tripped over a warped mat at the bottom of the stair case.  I was knocked out for just seconds, but as I came to, sitting on the stairs, I felt a great pain in my midsection.  As it happened, the school nurse was out that day, so I had to continue with my classes.

The following day - a Saturday - I went with my Mom to an antique show.  On the way home, I started throwing up.  My tummy was REALLY hurting by then.  When we got home, my Mom tried the old school remedy of baking soda and water to calm my stomach.  The pain was getting worse, so she called our family doctor who, in those days, made house calls.  He came and examined me, and gave me a shot for pain, saying if I wasn't better in the morning, to bring me to the ER.

I hadn't slept at all that night, so the next day, my Dad carried me to the car, and we went to the ER.  They took simple tests - my white blood count was over 11,000, which I was later to understand meant there was infection.  Dr. Haskins was called and they prepped me for exploratory surgery.  They put a tube down my nose (which was to stay there for 11 days), and, with me doubled over in pain, wheeled me into the OR.

As it happened, Dr. Haskins was in the hospital, and came running.   He was a GP, but he knew enough to do appendectomies and T&As.  From what I understood when my Mom told me - several DAYS after the 11-hour surgery - I had the "perfect storm" of an accident.  I fell squarely on my duodenum, and it was crushed as if a hammer had hit it.  All my other internal organs were affected as well.  The doctors (by that time, some specialists had been called in), mopped out 10 pints of coagulated blood.

These were the days before ICUs, so my parents hired sitters to be with me in case I needed anything.  One nurse, an elderly lady named Mrs. Sanders, read to me from Aesop's Fables, and we both queried on how horrible everything was!  I had tubes in both arms - blood and IV - plus that awful tube down the nose.  But - Mrs. Sanders was sent by God.  She gave me the motivation - through her mnistrations to me - to just give it "one more day and you'll feel better."

I was in the hospital for three months.  Mrs. Sanders brought the love of Jesus to me as I, an 11-year-old child, was hanging onto life.  I look back and marvel at the archaic surgery that was performed on me in 1959.  I even doubt if doctors today could have done what Dr. Haskins had done.  I just feel very blessed that I was given another lease on life.  And without the Godwink of Dr. Haskins - and Mrs. Sanders - I really MIGHT not be here to tell the tale.  God bless you.

I had an awful experience recently which caused much anxiety and stress, to which my Dr. took me off work for several weeks.  I had counseling sessions and my Dr. would check on my progress.  This week I went back to work and she called today to check on how I was doing.  After some conversation, I said I was trying to focus on the present, instead of worrying about the past or future.  After a small silence she said "That must be the reason I called you today, because I really needed to hear that."  Her husband had been telling her she was worrying too much over things she could not control (like myself).  We both agreed we try to think through everything to know what to say or how to proceed.    My Dr. is young enough to be my daughter and we clicked from the first meeting, as she relayed a similar incident when she was in nursing.  She had said it was like listening to her own story.

Anyway, God bless her for her gift of understanding and compassion.  At least I could offer her some of the same.

My beloved mother passed away in November 2006.  She had a great devotion to God and constantly put flowers, usually roses, by the various religious art or icons she had about her residence.  They were her way of continually offering prayer and at the same time thanking God for listening to her by keeping beauty by things that reminded her of Him. 

She fell ill Nov. 1, 2006 and required surgery.  She came through the surgery fine and the recovery as well.  But a day or two after the surgery she developed a severe infection and was admitted to ICU.  As I was living in Memphis and family was making plans to get to her side, a.s.a.p., my eldest sister Ruth arriving first I contacted a clergy friend to arrange for daily visits by clergy in the area for her spiritual comfort.   The day she died, as she was fading and we had her disconnected from artificial means of life support (she was 88), we all prayed by her side together as a family. We gathered together; her children, many of her grandchildren.; especially the first one and the last one with others calling in and we'd put the phone by her ear so she could "hear" them pray with us.  If it was a prayer she liked, we prayed it.  If it was a hymn she liked, we sang it.   About 11:25 pm she was leaving us.. her heart rate was just about nil and finally it stopped.  Yet despite the sadness, there was an immediate peace and sense of joy and jubiliation for the instant she died the hosptial room was filled with the scent of flowers.. all kinds but primarily roses.  There were no flowers on that floor.. they aren't permitted in ICU.  Yet her room was so filled with the aroma of them that the fragrance spilled out into the ICU hallways and walkways and folks commented and wondered where the HUGE arrangement of roses was!!  

We missed her greatly; but we knew she was Home. 

Thanks for providing a place to share our story.    My father-in-law (FIL) passed away in the Spring of 2008. He was a musican, a teacher and the well loved band director in the public school system. For Christmas this past year, 2008, I thought it would be special to get my MIL an embroidered sweatshirt with the names of her grandsons on it. I wanted to create a warm sense of family for her having just lost her husband of 52 years that year.

The sweatshirt my husband and I decided upon was with a design the computerized embroidery shop would sew the 4 Aces from a deck of cards with the words "Grandma's Four of a Kind" then the names of her 4 grandsons (our 2 sons and my sister-in-laws 2 sons). Grandma/my MIL loves to play card games.

Just before Christmas when my husband and I went to pick up the sweatshirt, there was silence while I was writing my check payment, then we were chatting with the shop clerk. She just happened to mention something in passing.  "You know I just remembered we had the strangest thing happen with your order."  She told us out of the thousands and thousands of symbols to be embroidered that she kept entering the correct number for the '4 aces cards' time and time again - and never before had this happened, but that the trumpet symbol for embroidery kept popping up instead of the 4 cards.  The clerk could not figure it out.  She called the software company, and they advised her to just keep trying.  Eventually the cards popped up and the trumpet disappeared.

I turned and just stared at my husband and chills ran through my body. You see my father-in-law's main instrument that he played was a trumpet!  Clearly this was no coicidence, and I couldn't wait until Christmas to share this story with my mother-in-law. To me it was a story that conveys love never ends.

After watching your segment on GMA, I determined that there have been many instances of Godwinks in my life. Ironically, one happened moments after watching!

My mother died 10 years ago and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of her. After your segment, and no- I didn't watch the rest of the program, I went upstairs to look online for some supplies I needed. I found them and when I went to enter my promotional code, I stopped in my tracks.

The code was: ATH84745

Those are her initials, my birthday, the perfect number, my age, and added all together, her birthyear!