Every morning for the past 2 and a half weeks I find myself walking through the white flourescent lit corridors of the Oncology department at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. The Radiology technicians, young, intilligent and religious, greet me with their first-thing-in-the-morning good mood and give me a sense that they care about me as a patient. Weather its part of their training and done systematically or true kindness, it doesn't really matter, it feels good to have a caring environment and a human touch when your'e blasted with 2.2gy of radioactivity every day. They put on my custom made CD with relaxing music and I lie there, with my custom made mask over my head and neck, on the table, receptive to the enormous machine's radioactive blows. It's painless and lasts about 10 minutes. Things start to become evident in the days that follow: dryness in my mouth, sore gums and throat and general fatigue. In the waiting room I socialize with the other people who also come for there daily dose of nuke. The American Bible Professor who was with me in ear-nose-throat ward when I had surgery 2 months ago, accompanied by his Philipino helper; the Russian grandfather, whose daughter practices meditation with a group that convenes in Armenia once a year; the bald kid in the wheelchair, accompanied by his english speaking brother who looks like he just got off the plane from New york to visit his sick brother back home. A mix of cultures and languages finds itself here in this small waiting room as a microcosm of Jerusalem; Arabs, Russians, Ethiopians, religious and non religious jews, americans, old, young, soldiers, cops, speaking a plathora of languages you would not even hear in a crowded train in New york city.
The Hospital itself is located near the old village of Ein-Kerem, once inhabited by Palestinians until they abandoned it in the 1948 war, when it was annexed to the new state of Israel and populated by immigrants from Morrocco, Iraq and Iran and later in the 70's started housing young students from the nearby university hospital, bourgeois yuppies who redid the old arab houses and turned parts of the village in to a high class neighborhood, enjoying its quaint little alleys and picturesque views to the Judean mountains, and not to mention the presence of the churches, monastaries and missions, which give this part of Jerusalem an unparallelled and unique character.
In the hallways of Haddassah hospital you don't really feel Ein Kerem. It seems very urban considering the rich natural surrounding including several national parks, natural cold water springs and spectacular views. The place is expanding rapidly and recently a mall and a hotel have been built on its premesis, in addition to a huge parking lot and a new main building to the hospital due to be finished in the next couple of years. It has taken its toll on the environment and the nearby Ein Hindak, a beautiful natural spring is forbidden for swimming due to large amounts of biological waste dumped into the hospital's sewage pipes and pouring into its sources, and an alarming statistic I heard recently that the emmisions coming out of the chimneys of this establishment were recorded as being 8,000 times the legal amount according to the Israeli Environment ministry. Scary to think a lot of these toxic chemicals are considered to be medicine for humans...
But you can feel Jerusalem here, and Israel in the 21st century, where you can find state of the art medical technology and free wi-fi side by side with the uniqueness of people's backgrounds who all find themselves here thanks to social medicine, their faces hoping for better days, for their suffering to end, and for a human touch behind this huge system.
The words "Sarcoma", "Carcinoma", "Metastasis" and more cancer terminiology is used freely in these hallways, and I can't help but feel a bit out of it, not connected to this genreal feeling of having cancer, feeling sorry for myself and talking about disease all the time. When I walk into the hospital with my Hippie attire as if I just got off a plane from India (not so far from the truth...), peope here look at me as if I don't belong. Young people of my kind don't get cancer, it doesn't fit with the image of your old 60+ year old whose body is giving way to death and decomposition. I moved my daily meditation practice to the time when I sit in the waiting room waiting for my name to be called into the radiation room. It's an interesting place to observe myself and the relationship with the outward environment which is so charged with emotion, sadness, helplessness and confusion. It gives me a sense of center, being in this thing together with all of these people and keeps me out of the downward spiral of feeling sorry for myself. Hopefully it inspires some people along the way.
5 more weeks to go.
It is not how much we do,
but how much love we put in the doing.
It is not how much we give,
but how much love we put in the giving.
~ Mother Teresa ~
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