Whoa, this order would kill an elephant, let alone a newborn human weighing 8 lbs.
I was working at my mom's hospital when a new order arrived, along with an adorable infant to be cared for during my shift.
That's the doctor those nurses in the cafeteria talked about.
While they didn’t tell me the name of the nurse who saw the physician take a newborn, who had a cord around its neck, and strangle it, leading to the baby’s death, I knew precisely which doctor it was. She was the only female OB/GYN, and this was her chart.
I picked up the phone.
“Hello, this is the nurse in the isolation nursery. I need you to check your orders, please.”
“I’m very busy. I don’t have time for this. Just do what I ordered.”
Her arrogance was loud. How dare I bother such a very important person?
“I can’t do that. You need to come in and review the orders, then sign off on them. I won’t do it until you do.”
The doctor quickly entered, grabbed the chart out of my hand, signed her name, and left.
My next call was to my nursing supervisor. I was alone with eight babies.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but I need to go to the bathroom.”
Taking the order with me, I waited until my supervisor arrived. Then I walked to the coffee machine, took a coffee filter, folded the order inside it, and tucked it into my bra.
When I showed my supervisor the original order, she said,
“You know, you wouldn’t have been to blame if you gave the medication.”
The drug was Digoxin. The dose ordered was 25 mg.
A human adult gets 0.25 mg.
A human baby gets 0.025 mg.
“There is no way I would’ve given this. I want to speak to the Chief of Pediatrics.”
The supervisor called him. He arrived, flanked by a group of interns studying with him. I showed him the order.
“I’ll speak with her,” was all he said.
I responded,
“That’s not good enough. I have a copy of the order, and if I find out that nothing happens by tomorrow, I will be going to the newspapers and the radio, showing them the order, and explaining. You have until tomorrow. I need you to tell me what you’ve done—and then I’ll make my own decision. Just in case you don’t understand, I made a copy and put it where you cannot touch it.”
The next day, he showed up. He told me the truth: the woman who signed that order was not a doctor. She did not have a license to practice medicine. She had forged it.
Glamorous? Not quite. But life-changing? Oh yes.
That action—scary as it was—led to the discovery that she had never graduated medical school, never held a real license. The police arrived and escorted her out of the hospital and into jail.
I slept better that night. But it was another tiny soul who stole my heart.
A 13-year-old girl had given birth to a 9-pound baby and left her to be transferred to a foundling home. I called her “Debbie.” I read to her, sang to her, told her stories of the stars and all the love I wished she could have. I visited her every free moment I had.
When the nuns arrived to take her to their foundling home, they called me in for a goodbye and told me her name was to be officially Deborah.
I cried.
I still wonder where she is.
I still pray that somewhere deep in her cells, she remembers someone who saw her—really saw her—and loved her without condition.
That’s the power of showing up.
That’s the root of my soul detective work.
Because sometimes what we detect isn’t just the crime—
It’s the crack where love can get in.
Reflection Questions
– Have you ever acted on your inner knowing, even when it was scary?
– What’s your version of a “bra moment”—when you found a clever or brave way to make change happen?
– Who do you still think about and silently send love to?
Try This
Write a letter to someone you couldn’t stay with but never stopped loving.
You don’t have to send it.
Just let your soul speak.
These were just a few of the twists that prepared me to appear on shows like The Ricki Lake Show, AMC’s MonsterFest, national news broadcasts with law enforcement, and my own weekly CableVision series on holistic health.
They all started from one truth:
When you honor your gifts and follow love, life opens wide.
With faith in all the invisible threads,
Nancy
