You can.

Sometimes, it is when we finally come to the end of ourselves and realize how much in need we are of God, that our humility allows Him to come through for us.

I kept thinking that perhaps, if I tried hard enough and practiced more, perhaps I would succeed. It didn’t happen.

So all week I’d been feeling discouraged about my blood-taking skills over my past few 30-hour calls. Sure, I had some knowledge in my head to help others in case of an emergency, but when it came to practical procedures like setting intravenous lines and taking blood cultures, I was lousy at best. It was a horrid feeling to miss a vein, cause someone pain instead of relief and then have to call an already busy senior to help.

Oh God, I finally prayed a few days ago, please help me. Everyone keeps saying that all I need is practice, that I’ll definitely improve, but I don’t see any progress! I was discouraged.

It’s funny how God can be so prompt sometimes to show us how faithful He is to answer our prayers.

It happened the next day.

“Doktorrr, can you come up now? Patient’s blood sugar is 1.6.”

“His blood sugar is what?”

I froze, stuttered, and immediately said my apologies to the senior professors to take my leave to attend to this emergency.

Blood glucose is 1.6. A normal person’s sugar level in his blood should range anywhere from about 4 before a meal to about 11 after a meal. Anything below 2 is dangerous, and can result in fits or permanent brain damage. The simple treatment to this is simply giving someone a sweet drink, but in the unexpected circumstance of an unduly low blood sugar level, one can become drowsy and will hence require an intravenous shot of sugar directly into one’s veins.

How I flew.

By the time I got there, he was drowsy already. The nurses had, on finding this abnormality, tried to get him to take the sugared drink but he was impossible to arouse. I saw his arms and legs twitch, then, panicking because I was afraid he would start shaking uncontrollably and throw a fit, I saw exactly what was needed at that point in time.

He needed intravenous access, and he needed it fast. The nurses had tried and failed. Now, in the face of this, and nobody else there to help, it was just me and his veins.

“Mr. T! Can you hear me?”

His eyes were closed already and he was unarousable.

Oh God, help me. I prayed a desperate prayer. I was shaking when I held the needle and cannula. This has to succeed, I told myself. He needs this shot, there is no time.

Bam. It went in. A dam of crimson blood flowed out and I heaved a sigh of relief before administering the shot of sugar. It took only 5 seconds for him to awaken.

“Mr. T, where are you??”

“Huh? I don’t know.”

“Mr. T, open your eyes! Who am I?”

“You?”

“Yar, me! Who am I?”

“You?” He finally opened his eyes like a tired cub.” You are my doctor.”

That was the fastest intravenous plug I’d ever set in my life.

It might have been a small event in the scheme of larger things, but as my first emergency in my first 3 weeks as a junior doctor, it was a big thing for me. To see how one small procedure I did could have such profound reversible effects to impact someone’s life was mind-blowing in some way.

I learnt, that it is so important to take every opportunity to practice and polish our skills, because someday, it could mean a difference between life and death, or lesser and greater damage. I learnt, that in my times of inadequacy and fear, God has never let me down and has always, always used my hands, in ways I never expect, to heal.

I learnt, that when we cannot, God can.

I used to keep striving to set those intravenous lines on my own. Now I realize, that really, it doesn’t hurt to say a prayer, and to acknowledge that I am where I am not because of my own ability, but because of how God has blessed me. It is this posture of humility that gives me the extra ability to do what I did not think I could.

That day, I went on to set another 2 intravenous lines on patients whose veins the nurses had given up on. 3 in a row- that has never happened before.

Three thirty-hour calls have been completed, and another one awaits me tomorrow. While each one has been better and more manageable progressively, sometimes, like today, I feel so tired I don’t know how I’ll manage. Every call is unpredictable- someone collapsing, someone in pain or someone in need of a diagnosis… no one can predict what will happen on that night when you have to make the decisions, set the intravenous lines and stand in the gap for someone between life and death, a poorer or better outcome.

Some days, I don’t know how I’ll manage.

But I know, it is when we humble ourselves to say God, I cannot but You can, that truly, God will not let us down, and use whatever little we have to offer for good.