Yom Kippur Miracle

At 5 pm, the patient used his call light to let me know that he needed his dinner tray in the next few minutes because the Yom Kippur fast was to start at precisely 6 pm. Of course he needed something complicated, a kosher renal diet. It's not like we have those just lying around. I don't know why he didn't let us know earlier. I guess that it wasn't until the sun was starting to set that suddenly he realized that he was about to lose his last chance to eat for 24 hours.

Getting dietary to send up a tray is not a simple matter. First of all, with the trays being delivered at 6 pm, dietary is a mad house at 5 pm with them busy assembling trays. It is rare for them to answer their phone at any time, much less during the busy dinner rush. It seemed hopeless, but a miracle occurred. Someone in dietary answered the phone. After some arguing, she agreed to send up the tray and even more amazing, the tray actually arrived as promised. There must have been divine intervention. This is not the way things normally operate.

The dinner wasn't anything fancy, just a frozen kosher TV dinner. I cooked it and gave it to the patient at 5:15. He was most appreciative and asked God several times to bless me. (I'm not sure that it's a good idea for someone as sick as he is to fast, but who am I to judge? Someone up there apparently wanted him to have that last meal.)