From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankar Vedantam.

This is my unsung hero, stories where one person reached out to help another in a time of need.

My story is about a group of unsung heroes.

He just pulled up a chair and we talked, I'd say for about 90 minutes or something.

I don't know if she really understands or appreciates the full impact that she's had in my life

and still continues to have. Today's story comes from Michael 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 and have

her admitted. She didn't know anybody that was around, including me, and 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 leslie was in the hospital so i'm taking the first ship with your wife

that just moved me to like you wouldn't believe that somebody would come in and, on their day off,

and come into the hospital because 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.

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