AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Time now for "My Unsung Hero," our series from the team at the Hidden Brain podcast telling stories of people whose kindness left a lasting impression. Today's story comes from Mike Lopes.
MIKE LOPES: My late wife was diagnosed with cancer in 2006, and in 2010, she was coming to the end of her life. One of the downfalls of her chemo is that she went into liver failure. And at the time, she couldn't even recognize who I was or who my sister was. And we were told to bring her into the ER. She didn't know anybody that was around, including me. About a half an hour after she was in the hospital, her chemo nurse, who was her chemo nurse all the time that she was getting chemo - her name's Beverly. And Beverly comes in, and it was the first recognition that my wife knew somebody that was in the room, and she got a big smile on her face. And I asked Beverly - I said, what are you doing here in the hospital? And she said, well, I have to work one or two days a month, and they called me up and told me that Lesli was in the hospital. So I'm taking the first shift with your wife.
That just moved me to, like, you wouldn't believe that somebody would come in and - on their day off 'cause their patient was there and to spend the first eight hours with my late wife. So I know that when Beverly came in, she was going to be in good hands. And I've never gone back to Beverly and said, thank you, but she's my unsung hero. And I'm sure she's the unsung hero for a lot of people. And that's what I got to say about Beverly. Thank you.
CHANG: Mike Lopes lives in Ben Lomond, California. His wife was Lesli Lopes. Since Mike's recording, he's been able to thank Beverly in person. Find more stories of unsung heroes and submit your own at hiddenbrain.org.
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