If you see something, say something. It just might save a person’s life. A 22-year-old warns a stranger about a suspicious mole and ends up saving his life.
Nadia Popovici is a big fan of the Canucks Hockey Team. She rarely missed a game. At one of the games, she couldn’t help but notice a mole on the assistant equipment manager Brain Hamilton.
She noticed an irregularly shaped mole that was about two centimeters in diameter. It was a reddish-brown color. Nadia knew all these descriptions are the marks of a cancerous mole that she had learned as a volunteer nursing assistant at a hospital.
But Nadia wasn’t sure whether or not Brian knew. She didn’t want to seem rude by pointing out the mark but she didn’t want Brian to die of cancer either.
Naida knew she needed to tell him but how do you go about saying, “Hey that weird thing on your neck could be a cancerous mole.” After telling her parents what she thought, she decided to go ahead to break the ice.
She waited until after the game was over and then type a message on her phone and held it against the plexiglass as she vied for Brian’s attention. The message read, “The mole on the back of your neck is possibly cancerous. Please go see a doctor!” with the words “mole,” “cancer” and “doctor” typed red.
After first Brian was taken back. He thought it was rude and Nadia regretted giving him the message. She said, “Maybe that was inappropriate of me to bring up.” But because the encounter was so bizarre, Brian asked the team doctor if he should be concerned about it. He then went to the doctor and had the mole removed.
The mole was then sent off to pathology, and shortly afterward Brian heard the words no one wants to hear, he had cancer. “Mr. Hamilton recalled the doctor telling him, “I’m going to diagnose you with cancer and I’m going to cure you of cancer in the same phone call.” He added, “She took me out of a slow fire and the words out of the doctor’s mouth were if I ignored that for four to five years, I wouldn’t be here.”
Brian learned that it was a type-2 malignant melanoma. This type of skin cancer when detected early can be treated. He then realized he never thanked the stranger who saved his life. But he had no idea who she was. In order to find his hero, he posted on the team’s Twitter account.
The post said: “To this woman I am trying to find, you changed my life, and now I want to find you to say THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH! Problem is, I don’t know who you are or where you are from.”
Several hours later, Nadia’s parents woke her up as she had been sleeping after a long night shift at a suicide prevention hotline to tell her about the message that had been posted to Twitter. They made plans to officially meet after the next hockey game which Nadia had already been planning to attend. Brian was able to thank this sweet, kind, young lady who saved his life.
Perhaps we all should take a page of Nadia’s playbook. If we see something wrong, say something.
“Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.” Ephesians 4:25
