I put my heart and soul into every piece I write—sometimes I look for humor in life’s moments and other times I wrestle with memory, fear, and the search for meaning in a world that keeps shifting beneath our feet.
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Musings from the surgical day admissions.
Today, dear readers, I am writing from an unlikely—and some might call unfortunate—place. I sit among a zigzag of purposeful, blue-clad workers, their heads covered with mesh, kippot, headscarves, or hijabs. A drugged patient of indeterminate age is wheeled past, clutching an extremity or two. I am surrounded by antiseptic, aspirin and bandages, infusions and sterile garbage cans, carefully labelled machines, curtains, sockets, and the strong, sterile scent of endless waiting.
And it’s all really about a tiny piece of glass. A couple of millimeters, more or less, wedged deep in Avi’s elbow. How it got there is another chapter of another story. The moment when our jeep tipped and we found ourselves upside down on an abandoned hillside is etched in my memory, but my fingers refuse to craft our jeeping adventures into essay form. Embarrassment, perhaps? I mean, accidents do happen—even ones that involve emergency rooms and extremely expensive repairs. I reserve the right to remain silent on the issue.
The staff here are remarkably—and shockingly—cheerful. Since I ruled out any possibility of a career that involved blood, pus, and broken bones (even worse, birth canals) a long time ago, I never cease to be amazed at those who choose to spend their days healing human flesh. I find it hard enough to deal with humans when they are healthy—but when they are in pain? It boggles the mind. And yet here they are, barking orders in Arabic, joking that Avi has put his foot cloth on his head and his head cover on his feet (“but you’re looking very nice,” she says).
They’ve asked him to remove his hearing aids, so I’ll be saying everything twice from now on (if not more). I think I’m better off writing for the time being.
Amazing—a tiny piece of glass, and an entire performance involving multiple members of staff with multiple responsibilities: surgeon, nurse, assistant, cleaner, administrator, head of department, and a lot of people whose jobs I’m unfamiliar with.
They’re chatting about a wedding coming up. For all their smiling, the staff could be at a wedding right now (just replace the scrubs with glittery dresses). Working in stressful situations produces a level of intimacy that might be the envy of certain families.
It might not even be the blood I could never work with, or the pain and screaming. I think it’s the fluorescent lights. They do something to me. I feel myself slowly merging into the system, losing my defenses, my individuality, my sense of night and day. It’s a bit like being online for too long.
Our country is in a waiting room. We wonder if the suffering is behind us, or if the worst is still to come. Our wounds are open and raw. Sterile conditions are required. Handle with care. Do we make plans, or err on the side of caution? We worry about secondary infections and superbugs, God forbid. And yet we are helpless—a tiny country in a giant tsunami of rage, caught in whirlwinds beyond our control. Just like all the patients here, we are utterly helpless, hoping and praying those in charge know what they’re doing. Because we can’t fight this one on our own.
I have my doubts about those in charge, however. The hospital staff have a brief, at least: do no harm. I wish I could say the same for the others.
A wailing Arab child has been wheeled in. He’s post-op, and they want to get him out to free the bed. It’s not going to be a quiet wait. There’s a Jewish kid on the other side of our cubicle kicking at the paper-thin walls. It’s more than a little distracting. And yet there is no shortage of jokes from the hospital staff. They’ve come to the conclusion that all the boy needs is a pudding and everything will be fine. My limited Arabic tells me he is refusing everything offered to him.
If Iran or Hezbollah or the Houthis keep their missiles to themselves, my students will graduate. In 2019 they had COVID. In 2023, October 7. Last year, a ten-day war. And this year—six weeks. Teaching only works with continuity. These kids didn’t get an education, but they will get a piece of paper claiming otherwise.
In the meantime, I’m not sure surgical intervention will be of much help in our country. There’s just damage limitation. Or survival.
The nurse is explaining in Hebrew how to continue follow-up treatment, and another nurse is translating into Arabic. Yes—the craziness of not sharing a common language. But somehow, we manage to make ourselves understood.
We cannot shrug off a piece of glass. When a foreign object embeds itself where it doesn’t belong, it must be removed before it does real damage. In the meantime, we steady ourselves with jokes and optimism—hoping it isn’t already too late.
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