The Doctor's Blessing Read Online Free PDF

Dog.”
    Reaching into a drawer on the exam table, he withdrew a hand puppet, a fuzzy brown dog with floppy ears, a white lab coat and a miniature stethoscope around his neck. Looking down at the toy, Phillip said, “Dr. Dog, I’d like you to meet Helen Lapp.”
    “Hello, Helen,” the puppet chirped in a falsetto voice as he waved one stubby arm.
    Phillip heard Amber giggle behind him. Helen sat up with a hesitant smile on her face.
    The puppet scratched his head with his paw. “What’s wrong with you, Helen? Are you sick?”
    Helen’s mother translated for her. The girl nodded, never taking her eyes off the toy.
    Swinging the puppet around to face himself, Phillip asked in his puppet voice, “Aren’t you going to make her better, Dr. White?”
    “I’m trying but Helen is afraid of me.”
    “She is?” Turning to face the little girl, Dr. Dog asked, “Are you afraid of Dr. White?”
    Her mother asked her the question in Pennsylvania Dutch. Helen glared at Phillip and nodded.
    Dr. Dog rubbed his nose. “But you aren’t scared of me, are you?”
    When her mother stopped speaking, Helen shook her head. Reaching out tentatively, she patted the dog’s head then giggled. Her laughter quickly became a harsh cough.
    Dr. Dog asked, “Can I listen to your chest?”
    Helen leaned back against her mother but didn’t object. Using Dr. Dog to grasp his stethoscope, Phillip listened to the child. When he was done with the exam, Dr. Dog thanked Helen, shook hands with her and her mother, then returned to his drawer. Helen continued to watch the drawer as if he might pop out again.
    As Phillip wrote out a prescription for Helen, Amber leaned close. “Very clever.”
    More pleased than he should have been by that simple compliment, he continued with his work. Helen had him deeply concerned.
    Turning to her mother, he handed her the prescription and said, “I hear a loud murmur in Helen’s heart, a noise that shouldn’t be there. I’d like for her to see a specialist.”
    The woman stared at the note in her hand. “Will this medicine make her better?”
    “I believe so, but she needs to see a heart doctor. I’ll have Amber make an appointment. I believe Helen’s heart condition is making her cough worse.”
    The mother nodded. Relieved, he looked to Amber. She said, “I’ll take care of it.”
    He saw several more townspeople after that with assorted coughs and colds. Then two young Amish brothers came in with poison ivy from head to toe. Their mother explained her usual home remedy had failed to help.
    He asked for her recipe and jotted it down. He then ordered a steroid shot for each of the boys. Afterward, he gave their mother a prescription for an ointment to be used twice a day, but encouraged her to continue her own treatment as well.
    When they left, Amber remained in the room.
    “Yes?” He kept writing on the chart without looking up.
    “Why didn’t you have her discontinue her home remedy? It clearly isn’t working.”
    “There was nothing in it that would interfere with the medication I prescribed. It should even give the boys some added relief. Mostly, it will make her feel better to be doing something for them.” He snapped the chart shut. “What’s next?”
    His final patient of the day turned out to be an Amish woman with a badly swollen wrist.
    Amber stood by the counter as Phillip pulled his chair upbeside the young Mrs. Nissley. Her first name was Martha. She held her arm cradled across her stomach.
    Phillip said, “May I see your wrist, please?”
    Taking it gently, he palpated it, feeling for any obvious breaks. “Tell me what happened.”
    “The dog scared my Milch cow, and she kicked. She missed the dog but hit me.”
    He winced. “Sounds painful.”
    “ Ja. That it is.”
    He admired her stoicism. “You’re the first cow-kick victim I’ve treated in my career. In spite of that, the only way to be certain it isn’t broken is to get an X-ray. Are you related to Edna