What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger ( Or Does It?)

Lately, because of my heart problems I see myself forced to wander the labyrinth of the health care system.

While health care for everybody has many advantages, it has its holes, too. Deep, dark ones you can easily fall into if you don’t pay attention.

And I am writing this not only because it does me good, you know, spill it out, but also because I think there is a lesson to be learned somewhere.

Following the episode with my heart going berserk, I managed to get hold of my family doctor. I asked a clerk from my HMO to help me because I couldn’t get an appointment with my doctor until the end of the month. The clerk, a young woman, was very helpful. In the end the doctor contacted me and gave me referrals to tests.

I also asked for medication because I was scared the episode could repeat itself.

She gave me a prescription.

But, after I acquired the medication and read the leaflet that came with it, I discovered I couldn’t take it. I have a history of asthma, and under no circumstances am I supposed to take this medicine. Unless, of course, I wanted it to trigger an asthma attack.

Great. Just great!

I swore so badly and so creatively that I was ashamed of myself.

How? Why? How was I supposed to know?

I don’t understand. It is there. In my medical records. I bet she didn’t check, because it was the end of her shift and after seeing a million patients, she was tired.

Still. I try to understand.

But what keeps coming into my mind is: what would have happened if I had taken the pill?

It has happened before, you know. A doctor wanted to give me medication I was allergic to. Again, it was in my records.

Same shit happened to my husband. He received a treatment he wasn’t supposed to have because of another underlying medical condition. It affected him badly. We had to go to the emergency room.

Go figure.

It is not enough that I cannot have any tests done until the middle or end of October because everybody is on vacation. Now I have to wait until my family doctor returns from her holiday at the end of the month to change my medication.

In case I don’t die before then.

I can also try to begin the saga of phone calls and questions and see if somebody else can do it.

I don’t have anything against doctors. I think they are great guys and gals. Heck, my daughter is going to become one. I know they are overworked and underpaid.

But how is this my fault?

Isn’t there some magical computer program that could cross-check your ailments, allergies, medications, stuff like that? And if you were prescribed something you shouldn’t take, some alarm would go off, with loud shrieks and ambulance lights going over their heads?

If not, maybe somebody should invent it.

I am just tired.

I just want to know what is wrong with my heart, not play pill detective. I don’t want to take part in this stupid game of hide-and-seek that makes me more anxious, more stressed while I am already trying to figure out what the hell is happening inside my own body.

 

 

  

“Cu o moarte sintem datori” (“We All Owe One Death to God”)

 

 

The words of a friend of mine were ringing in my ears while I was waiting for a taxi to take me to the ER. It was 3 o’clock in the morning and I’d just woken up with my heart hammering in my chest a crazy rhythm and my pulse at an alarming rate.

It was, no doubt, one of the scariest moments of my life. Together with the time when Iranian missiles were flying over my head while lying in a ditch and Maya’s fainting because of rotavirus, it made the first of the three. Hurray!

Of course, being scared witless didn’t help. I tried breathing exercises, praying…and even now, when I am writing about it, it sends my anxiety levels through the roof.

At the ER they did blood tests, an X-ray and EKG and they said everything looked normal. My heart rate went down and I was shivering. They sent me home with “recommendations”. You know, go to your family doctor and ask for referrals to tests and a cardiologist. My doctor didn’t have free appointments until the end of the month because, well, holidays. Almost nobody works during this month, all the Jewish holidays come one after the other this month. So, everything gets pushed to next month. In September…well, I just have to survive September somehow.

What if it happens again, I asked. They shrugged.

They said maybe it is stress related.

Yes, I know, stress. The “silent Killer”. Or was it high blood pressure?

Don’t tell me about stress. I have been living with it for as long as I understood what it is. The last two years were especially hellish. Wars, Maya’s army, my husband’s cancer that made a spectacular come-back… And a million other problems I am not going to tell you about.

I know myself.

I am the one that cries over sick stray cats, worries about everything and everybody, whether next winter will be rainy and the water will infiltrate in the apartment. Why our neighbor parks his car on two parking spaces when there aren’t enough for all the cars in the building. Stupid stuff like that.

I cannot escape this toxic cloud of worry and anxiety that follows me everywhere, no matter how hard I try.

Because this is who I am.

I tried meditation and autogenic training and natural remedies and I read myself in a coma and I write and I try to cope with life the best I can.

But in the end, I know.

I know my heart is going to kill me one day, the soppy bastard.

 

“It’s Sweltering, Old Boy” (But Not in the Way You Think)

 

 

Today I had to go outside for a chore and I instantly regretted my decision. It was so hot outside I thought I would melt and become a greasy stain on the sidewalk. The air was so syrupy and dense that it was difficult to draw in a breath without singeing my lungs.

The words of the Romanian writer I.L. Caragiale popped into my boiling, bubbling brain:

 “Caldura mare, monser”.

 “It’s sweltering, old boy”.

Little did he know what sweltering truly meant…

The streets are almost empty. Almost nobody is crazy enough to venture outside, stepping right into the mouth of Hell. A few shops are open, mainly selling cold drinks and ice-cream. I enter one of them to cool down a bit.

Thank God for air conditioning.

I go outside again and because the neighborhood is deserted, I have the opportunity to really look at it, while I walk. It is one of the older neighborhoods in the city.

But disappointment has a sour taste…

Everything is so dirty.

From the old buildings to the alleys between them. Plastic bags and paper cups roll along the pavement, courtesy the wind. You can smell the trash cans from a distance, even if you haven’t seen the clouds of flies hovering over them. The earth is dry and peppered with litter. Every shrub, every plant, every bush seems to have collected its share.

I walk through the sleepy streets and reminisce.

This city wasn’t in such a sorry state before, when I arrived here, was it?

I don’t remember clearly.

I remember the streets looking much cleaner, the buildings less dusty.  I don’t think there was this much trash everywhere.

Or maybe then I chose not to see it?

Because I was young and enthusiastic about starting a new life here, perhaps?

Perspiration runs down my back. I congratulate myself for bringing a hat with me, at least I won’t get a sunstroke.

Heat stroke, maybe.

Surrounded by big, grey buildings I feel them emanating heat. With almost no trees and no shade whatsoever, the landscape is depressing and almost alien.

Times are changing.

People are changing.

And here, under the hot, unforgiving sun I came to a conclusion.

 I don’t like it.

I don’t like it at all.

I don’t like where we are headed, as humanity.

In don’t like that even when we talk about progress, we are still the same cave people that bashed each other’s heads in for a chunk of meat.

I don’t like that we have grown complacent and ignorant and plain stupid in a world where stupidity sits on the golden throne.

I know I cannot do much.

Even if “be the change” is a nice mantra, I don’t think it is true.

Una hirundo non facit ver, said the romans.

A swallow does not make a spring.

I cannot be the change even if I willed it with all my heart.

And I have many examples to give, but I will stop here.

I won’t tell you about me cleaning the area around the garbage can because it was full of shards of glass after somebody shattered some windows nearby. And I did that because I didn’t want the street cats to get hurt.

Nobody ever followed my example. On contrary, they continued dumping trash everywhere, just not in the bin.

I won’t argue with my neighbor that smokes in the building, filling the halls with acrid smoke that permeates everything.

I won’t ask people not to crowd into the elevator because it might get stuck.

I will just stand aside and watch them destroy every last bit of hope I had for my fellow humans.

Because, one way or another, we are doomed.

And I won’t be that change anymore.

I won’t be that swallow anymore.

Because it doesn’t mean anything.

Not anymore.

How Are You?

 

When people ask how are you, do they really mean it? Do they really care? Or is it just some sort of social convention, but nobody actually gives a rat’s ass about you or your life?

So, when people ask me this question, I plaster a fake smile (real or virtual) on my face and I answer, verbally or in writing, I am well, thank you.

And I wish you wouldn’t ask me this if you didn’t care for an answer.

I can’t imagine what people actually expect you to answer. They assume you are going to tell them the truth about how you really feel, how you truly are? Are you going to pour your soul out and tell them everything?

 I don’t think so.

I don’t think they care enough to actually listen to what you have to say. Many times, the question is thrown at you while they are already walking past you, so what do they expect? That you are going to run after them, shouting about your latest achievements or failures?

I don’t think so.

And anyway, I am not going to burden some random acquaintance with the story of my life and the myriad problems I face.

Because, by God, my life is such an entangled mess lately. I am going through such a strange period.

I can see and feel that I am getting old. And like all new things, it scares me, because I don’t know what to expect.

Pain? Arthritis? Cataracts? Wrinkly skin? The feeling that you are losing your marbles, your stamina, your muscles? Bigger, floppy ears? Chin hair?

When we’re young we don’t think about old age. It is something so remote that it feels as though it will never happen to us. Or, if it does, it will somehow be different.

But it comes to all of us in the end, surprising us in the most unpleasant ways.

Your body starts betraying you. Your mind is not as sharp as it used to be. Your skin is dry and crepey and not so firm. Your hands are full of age spots.

And surprise! You hurt your shoulder when you lift a ten-kilo watermelon.

Of course, it is not all doom and gloom.

Old age can feel…liberating.

I mean, I stopped caring what people think, for starters. You know, what will the neighbors say? stuff.

I speak my mind. I wear whatever pleases me, even if it is a Guns N’ Roses t-shirt and holey jeans. And the colors don’t have to match, either.

I truly don’t know how much time I still have on this Earth. I am pretty sure I will spend half of it, if not more, worrying about my family and world peace. 

But I will try and spend the other half doing the things I love to do.

I am sure that from time to time I’ll shrug and ask myself Why bother?

Because even if I am old and I still haven’t found out the secret of life and afterlife, I can still lie on the beach at night, on the warm sand and watch the stars and galaxies being born and dying.

I can still listen to the waves of the sea, like a never- ending, soothing lullaby.

And even if I can’t say or write deep philosophical things like the Dalai Lama, I can still enjoy a good book and a pumpkin-spice-flavored coffee. I can still watch my cats chase butterflies in their sleep.

And marvel at the baby pigeon that just hatched in a small plastic basket hanging from my clothesline.

Life is good.

Life is bad.

Life is a mish-mash of tragedies and comedies, all at once.

We are the scale that tries to find equilibrium. We are the tightrope walkers with no safety net.

But who cares?

We have the wings of our own imagination.

Where I Go When the World Is Too Much

A couple of days ago something not very nice happened to me, I received some bad news. I won’t tell you what news, that’s not relevant at the moment. I will just say that rejection hurts and I will stop here. I am more disappointed than hurt, to be honest, but it will pass, eventually.

This time, instead of feeling sorry for myself and swimming in the sea of self-pity, I went shopping on the world wide web and bought myself some books. And afterwards, I started reading India Holton’s The League of Gentlewomen Witches and I laughed so much and so hard I snorted my tea.

So yes, maybe I live sometimes in an imaginary world populated by enchanted libraries, wizards, flying castles and lady pirates, but it is my way of coping with reality.

I remember one summer when there wasn’t too much to do. I wasn’t that young as to be sent outside to play with friends so I was bored and lonely. And then I discovered a cabinet whose lower part was crammed full with books. I don’t know why or who had put them there. What I remember is that I sat down in front of the cabinet, I took a book and I began reading. And during that summer, I read all the books inside that piece of furniture. And just like that, the long, dull summer became something magical. It was the first time I discovered that a book could open a door and take me somewhere else.

And so it went on.

Because most of the time nobody really paid attention to what I was doing, I continued reading.  I decided I wanted to spend my life surrounded with these enchanted things. The books in our home, the books at the school library and the ones at the city library, too. I devoured them. I was unstoppable.

And I have been living with them, inside them ever since. Filling myself with other people’s words and sentiments until I couldn’t feel my own.

You know what Heaven looks like to me? A huge library. If I close my eyes I can see it so clearly in my mind. Endless shelves. Quiet corners. Big windows with comfortable window seats. Armchairs, chairs, whatever I fancy. Rooms with books for different moods: classical, a dark gothic wing for Dracula and Frankenstein and Anne Rice. Shelves upon shelves of cozy fantasy, another room for beautiful deluxe editions. And of course, an enchanted cat wandering between them. What a dream! To be able to read whenever I wanted, for as long as I wanted. No chores, no hospital visits, no long nights of anxiety, no bad thoughts.

Books helped me my entire life. I have read myself safe and sane so many times.

When life would be too much, I would disappear in a book for a while.

So, a few days ago I got upset because of some news I received.  I sat down and wrote about it. And then I read a book. And then reality was manageable again. 

Buy a Bed, Sleep on The Floor

I used to love IKEA. Going there shopping used to be a nice way to fill a couple of hours. And I always bought something, even if I didn’t really need it. Now? Not so much. It became too noisy. Too crowded. It is summer, so if they have nowhere to go, nothing planned, the parents take their kids to IKEA. It is like a huge playground for them. The parents peruse at will, relaxed, while their kids run amok on the floors, screaming their heads off, stumbling on furniture and tripping everybody. It is a mad house.

And don’t get me started on the cafeteria The prices are good, so it is always super-packed. And dirty. And loud. And the workers there have the most bored, tired faces in the history of giving you the empty cups to make your own coffee.

We needed to buy a bed. But if you’re not young enough or fit enough you will have to look for somebody to help you lug the big pieces of furniture on your flatbed cart. Preferably an employee you will find after long minutes of walking though the labyrinth that is IKEA’s warehouse.

Then, you need to somehow push your trolley laden with the huge boxes towards the costumer’s service because you want them to be shipped to your home and assembled there. You have to wait for more than half an hour because, even if there are eight counters only two, at some point one, at some point no one is working them.

Finally, you are called at the counter where the employee is telling you that yes, we will deliver your bed in a couple of days but, the person that needs to assemble it will come in the middle on September. At first, you think you didn’t hear it right, but no, here it is. Middle of September. I mean, SERIOUSLY?

You don’t have enough staff? By God, hire some. I think you, as a big company can afford that.

What is supposed to do somebody who bought a bed until the aforementioned piece of furniture arrives? Sleep on the floor? Go to a hotel? Go to relatives? Better still, go on a vacation? Look for somebody else to put together the bed? You know how it goes with IKEA’s furniture. It is like Lego, so you need skills and imagination.

I think the long “contract” they made me sign when I bought their services should include some suggestions regarding what a client should do while waiting for the assembling of the blasted furniture.

What can I say? If one tries to buy furniture from some other shops, it is a bad experience. The furniture is ugly, expensive and not practical. So, IKEA is still the best choice. But it doesn’t mean it should be the worst scenario.

 

What I Bring Home From The Hospital… or…when the hospital comes home with me…

 

What I Bring Home From The Hospital…

                                            or…when the hospital comes home with me…

 

Sometimes, after we return from my husband’s treatment at Hadassah Hospital, I am OK. Relatively. The fact that the treatments work and my husband is feeling better, it helps.

But sometimes, no matter how zen and detached I try to be, it doesn’t work. The people there, their pain and suffering. It gets to me. And then it leaves me like after a storm wrecked the neighborhood of my soul.

It takes me a number of days to put myself together, to try and forget, or at least to push at the back of my mind whatever I witnessed. Because, whenever I close my eyes, the images play behind my eyelids, over and over. Sick people, so many sick people. Old and young, too. Faces trying to be brave, faces reflecting the suffering inside. Legs barely shuffling across the floor. Hushed voices. The silence pierced by a shrill cry. Somebody shouts; I hear feet running.

I wander the corridors of the hospital searching for a quiet, remote place to sit for a few minutes, to gather my thoughts, to wipe my tears.

But around me, patients and personnel are engaged in a strange dance, to and fro, like the waves of an unrelented sea.

How do they do it?

My husband’s doctor doesn’t have a moment for herself. Patients, colleagues, staff, they all want her time and attention. Which she gives, without pause, with a smile and a good word. The nurses and the other people that work there are in a perpetual motion. They come and go, talk to everybody, they know their names, their families. In between tests, treatments, filled forms they find that precious minute of empathy that means the world to a frightened patient. And the ladies, the volunteers that share snacks, food, coffees. They have the most brilliant smiles and are deeply offended if you refuse them.

Together they form this strange universe, stars and planets, galaxies that gravitate one around the other, in synchrony, sometimes perfect, sometimes terribly out of balance. Like life and death. 

 

When I come back home, distressed and sad, the feeling lingers with me for days. I carry with me their agony and grief, their hopes and desperation, like chains around my ankles. So let me be, don’t ask me questions and don’t try to make me feel better. I won’t. But it will pass. To blossom again, like flower made of ice, in my heart, next time I visit there.

 

The Things I Cannot Write About

 

I will to begin by telling you this: I cannot write therefore I am going to write about not being able to write.

I think it happens to all of us who live by words. There are days when our brains refuse to produce publishable pieces. For different reasons.

For me, it is the fact that I cannot write about the things that I am going through lately. Let me rephrase it better: I wrote about them, but they are too personal to be shared, so they will remain somewhere between the covers of my hidden notebooks, the ones meant for my eyes only.

And this puts a lot of pressure on me. I worked hard to revive this blog and I am afraid I will lose it again; it will disappear into the silence that deafened me before. And I don’t want it to happen. I love this tiny corner of the internet where I can come once in a while, sit and ponder on memories, ideas, past events, feelings. And share them with you.

So, you can understand my fear. I don’t want to fade away again, after I found myself anew. I don’t want to abandon this piece of soul of mine that kept me going all these years.

Believe me, I want to come here and shout from the top of my lungs everything I cannot share in writing. But I won’t.

I want to come here and tell you how difficult it is to be me, and complain and cry. Maybe I will. But not today.

Today I feel like all the doors around me are closed and I am trapped in this hollow place, with no light, no windows. Only walls and nothingness.

So, I’ll sit down here, on the cold hard floor. And let all the trapped feelings circle around me like hungry wolves.

And if you want to sit with me for a while, do it. If not, look, there is one door opening. Close it gently behind you.

The Cockroaches Are Not The Problem

 

Today I was so angry. So, so angry. Like a toxic cloud, the anger descended upon me. It was triggered by a stupid thing, an announcement tapped on the building’s door about a disinfection that will take place someday next week. For the cockroaches.

It happened so many times in the past. They came and did whatever they do and for a while the air would choke me and then I would find dead cockroaches all over our building, on their back, feet in the air. The survivors would try and sneak in our apartment, to the delight of our cats, who would chase them, play with them and then, of course, kill them.

I hate cockroaches, just like everyone else. But, look around, so much trash everywhere.

The first thing you fell when you enter our building is the smell of mold, of things rotting away in corners. Nobody knows what really lurks in our basement. People drag their trash bags from the elevator through the lobby, leaving a wet streak of slops. Sometimes, they throw the trash bags from a distance, missing the trash can altogether, the litter spilling everywhere. Nobody ever cleans it. In the summer the stench is unbearable.

Sometimes the sewerage is clogged because people throw all kind of stuff into their toilets, from diapers to clothes.

On the third floor it is impossible to pass through. There is a bike there, chairs and lots of carboard boxes. In case of a fire, a death trap. On the fourth floor, a broken, I assume, washing machine, a couple of small tables with pots filled with dead plants. And a heartfelt thank you to our neighbor who stopped smoking. Congrats! Before that, he used to throw on the window the still burning cigarette butts. Many of them landed on the roof of our car that was parked under his window.

There is so much filth and neglect around us.

Nothing works. The elevator is broken almost all the time, the water doesn’t have enough pressure to reach the upper floors. But we decided to wage a war against cockroaches. Not for a minute to ponder and ask ourselves why do they love our building so much. According to some tradition or other, it is forbidden to throw bread in the bin, so people put plastic bags filled with bread on the lid of the trash can or on the ground. It stays there until it rots. But they determined the cockroaches are to blame. Who knew?

We decided to kill the cockroaches. Their bodies will litter the staircase and the lobby for many days afterwards because nobody will bother to sweep them. We’ll feel a sense of righteousness every time we will look at them. We exterminated the roaches, they’ll say. While, in one corner, they are already scuttling. They would survive an atomic bomb, did you know?

 

Another Sunset To Witness

 

 

I thought a lot after writing and publishing my essay about old age, about old people, about the fear of growing old. I thought about the inevitable, about humiliation, about illness, about frail bodies and minds.

But then, my perspective shifted, like looking through a child’s kaleidoscope into the light.  Suddenly, the same pieces formed an entirely different picture. And I realized that while getting old is still a bother, it is also a privilege. 

Yes, maybe you are losing your marbles and the control of your bladder, but you can still see your family around you, growing and flourishing.

You need help to walk to the nearest park and your vision is a little blurry, but you can still smell the freshly cut grass in the morning, listen to the birds singing like crazed gramophones.  You can still fell the warmth of the sun soothing your weary bones and the deep lines etched across your face.

There are days when you forget what month it is, perhaps even what century. Yet you can still enjoy today, with all its moments, happy or sad.

And while your hands are old and veiny, mapped with a constellation of age spots and trembling just a little, you can still caress the cheeks of your children and grandchildren. You can still hold the hand of the one you have loved for decades, equally old and bony, while watching a movie, even if you forget its name the moment it ends. The memory of that touch will linger on your papery skin.

And as long as your nightstand still holds, beside the medication, eye drops and an array of face creams, a stack of books, a dried flower your daughter gave you, and books, notebooks and jars full of pens and as long as a cat still sleeps beside your head, chasing butterflies in his dreams, you are not giving up. You still have another sunset to witness, another tear to cry, another pumpkin-spice coffee to enjoy.

For all the small pleasures that remain, however many or however few, life is still worth living.

So, I understand now.

When I see their ancient bodies and hear their croaked voices, I won’t ask myself What are they still doing here? Because I understand now.

For every leaf that falls, every creek that murmurs, every blade of grass, every second and every eternity, it is worth it.