In The Outpatient Department, Where Time Stands Still

Last Thursday, we had a kind of emergency. A mini-emergency. Health related. My husband’s, unfortunately. At first we panicked, we didn’t know what to do, where to go, who should we call? And then, my experience as a SAHM for many years kicked in and I remembered the Outpatient Department at our health clinic. It was the place I took my daughter many times when she was little and sick.

Because we were sure my husband would need some tests and a doctor, I told him to call his family practitioner for a referral, and off we went.

As we didn’t want to go directly to the hospital, the Outpatient Department was the best option. I think about it like the little sister of an emergency room in a hospital… They are able to do basic tests, they have doctors and nurses and give you any treatment necessary. For us it is good because it is close to our home and my husband was able to walk there. What I like (well, if I can use the word “like” when I speak about a place for medical emergencies) about the place is that mainly in the afternoons it is not crowded.

After some anxiety filled time, they received us and they did tests and a doctor saw my husband and concluded it is not a “go to the hospital” situation, more like a “wait and see one”. After they ruled out the emergency factor, everything just quieted down around us. Everybody talked in low voices and I felt myself relax and be able to look around. Because they weren’t in a hurry anymore, they left us – my husband in a bed and me, standing guard nearby.

There weren’t many patients in the ward. An old man, that came with his wife also, wanted to leave and tried to argue with the doctor. But the physician, calmly and politely, was attempting to talk some sense into him – “you have almost no white blood cells, you cannot go home. Not yet.” Then somehow the conversation became about family names and their origin. This is what I like here: everybody has an origin story.

There was also an older lady who wasn’t feeling well but couldn’t tell exactly why and what bothered her. I left the doctors and nurses to try and unravel the mystery.

There were a couple of empty beds and I was so tired I wanted to just lie down in one and go to sleep. And to wake up only when everything is all right.

In the end, they filled out the papers and let us go.  

We walked home slowly; my husband was exhausted. Outside, the day was exactly as we left it – people hurrying home, cars honking impatiently, a dog barking in the nearby park.

Whatever tomorrow would bring, it wasn’t an emergency anymore and for one afternoon, that was enough for us. 

Until I Get To Be Me

 

I am tired, so tired of all of this. Weary and drained. Fed up. Had enough.

Oh, did I offend you? Did you want something nice and cheery and motivational, to help you deal with the crap in your life? You’re in the wrong place, pal. I don’t do any of that. Not today, anyway.

Today I write of pain and disappointment, disease and anxiety, anger and frustration, fatigue and anguish. And so many more feelings that fight to be acknowledged.

I feel like all I do these days is fight something or someone, real or imagined. And I am just tired. Sometimes I think I fight with myself and it is not a pretty sight. I don’t have a very good opinion of myself, so I hurl obscenities at me and try to make myself small and insignificant. And I keep bringing up the mistakes I’ve made, the stupid things I did, and I try to humiliate myself and make me suffer.

Sometimes I think I am my own worst enemy. Sometimes I wonder if I am my best one.

When I was young, I used to harm myself.

In order to mute what I felt inside I had to make the physical pain louder.

Not that it helped.

Pain is pain is pain.

And now I have the scars to remind me.

I am so tired.

And I would like nothing more than to lie down under a mighty tree in a deep forest somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains in Romania.

To feel the soft wind on my face and to listen to the sounds of nature: leaves rustling, birds twittering, millions of insects, tiny constellations buzzing in the warm air.

To push my cheek to the ground, to smell the rich moist aroma of the earth and the fresh, green scent of the grass.

To soak the soil with my tears and for the moisture to reach the roots of the tree and then to erupt with the sap in the leaves and to be dried by the sun.

I want to lie there and forget about everything, to rest until I don’t remember who I am anymore, to be born again, new and untainted, not as myself, but as something special, remarkable. A flower, maybe. Or a strange bush. A medicinal plant. To ease and to sooth. To nurture.

And then to begin again. And again. Until I get it right. Until I get to be me.

At Sixty, I Am Still Waiting For An Explanation

 

 

 

I am sixty years old and I still have no idea what is this life that I, we, have to live.

Is it a miracle or a curse?

I remember when I was pregnant with my daughter I had an ultrasound, the first one. What I saw then on the machine’s monitor – a cluster of cells, beating to their own rhythm and the technician telling me “Look, it has a heartbeat” – it looked like a miracle to me.

When I look at my husband, at all the other patients sitting quietly in hospital rooms, when I see him, them, suffering, it looks like a curse to me.

Why are we born if from the first second we breathe in air we are headed towards death, towards nothingness?

Why exist at all if the sole purpose of our existence is non-existence?

And don’t tell me all that bullshit about journeys and roads and experience and ascension.

Because it is not real.

Because it is not it.

We live and work, we build and create and heal and, in the end, nothing comes out of it.

Life is struggle and pain and suffering and for what? To what end? Heaven? I don’t think so.

I’ve seen so much during my existence on this Earth that I cannot be fooled anymore.

The religious people say that life is simply a transition to…to where? Why?

If all this would be that simple.

I once asked my uncle, who was a priest, about life, God, Heaven, Hell, Universe, us. He shoved me a walnut and said;” Do you see this walnut? This is your mind. And God is so huge that your mind cannot contain Him, cannot comprehend.”

Yes, he was a clever man, my uncle. But I wasn’t convinced.

I wanted to know why I had to live this daily battle. What is to learn? What is to understand? Do we, as human beings contribute with our so-called lives to something bigger, something important?  I would like to think so, to imagine myself as a part of something significant.

But I am skeptical. I don’t know anymore. I mean, I want to believe because otherwise it is really depressing to think that all this will simply end some day and we still won’t understand why.

The truth is, we don’t know anything. We never did. None of us. We just fool ourselves that we do, that we are on this mission to unfold the meaning of life. Because, otherwise, why live?

We are small and so not important and we try to occupy our existence with petty, despicable actions in the name of…What? The immortality of the soul? Perhaps. But do we really have souls or are we simply blood and flesh machines?

I don’t know. I don’t know anything and it is late and I am tired.

I watch the numbers on the clock and I feel time slipping through my fingers.

Twenty-Seven Years, One Suitcase, and a Life I Never Expected

 

Today marks our 27^th wedding anniversary and as I sit down to write about it, I still cannot wrap my mind around it…27 years…where did they go?

When I met and then later, agreed to marry my husband I didn’t know that my life would change almost completely. And not because of the marriage, no. Because, unbeknownst to me, I would embark on a journey that would change my life. Naïve as I was, having been born under a communist regime that liked to keep us ignorant and uninformed, I didn’t have any idea what would mean to me to travel and settle myself across the world. For love. For having someone in my life. A partner.

I arrived in a country that was different from anything I had known or imagined. Different religion, different customs and holidays, different language and totally different climate.

How do you build a family when everything around you is strange and unfamiliar?

It wasn’t easy, I must confess. But, in a sense, it forced me to try and make it work, because I had already chosen this life and I was determined to make the best of it. It is easy, when things don’t work in a marriage, to just pack one’s bags and leave, isn’t it? It is more difficult though when leaving is not an option. Because then, you have to find a way to get by, to cope.

If someone ever tells you that marriage, partnership are easy, don’t believe them, they’re liars. Marriage, as any other human relationship is complicated and not straightforward. Sometimes you are facing certain situations that make you think “I’m done” and then you step back to gain a bit of perspective and try to find solutions instead of just walking away.

After 27 years of marriage, I can tell you, marriage is hard work. Compromises. Good days and bad days. Decisions that have to be made. Kids that must be raised and educated. Tears. Joy and sorrow. Money. Responsibility. Words that elevate and words that hurt. And some days, just putting one foot in front of the other.

And the real test of a marriage doesn’t come during good times. No, it comes during bad times, when you have to grit your teeth and try to survive, to come out of it (mostly) unscathed.

And that’s marriage for you.

So, happy anniversary to us, to our struggles and our moments of happiness, to everything we built together and, I hope, to many more years to come.

Adventures in … Carrefour

 

 

Everybody was so, so happy when Carrefour, the French retail chain came to Israel… We thought maybe we’ll have variety, lower prices, better services, high quality goods... Well, that’s not what happened. There weren’t many brand products and all the other stuff they sold in their super-markets was the same as everywhere else, only more expensive.

We have a mini-market in our neighborhood, among Russian delis and shops. For 27 years, since I’ve moved here, I’ve been shopping there. They are close, while the big supermarkets are usually in the outskirts and I don’t drive. The place had a lot of owners, before becoming a Carrefour branch.

I go there mainly because I have no other choices around, I know the place and everybody who works there and they have a bomb shelter – very important these days.

Like every Israeli neighborhood shop it has its daily struggles. I mean, there is always some “drama”. Not enough cashiers, not enough smaller trolleys, no milk, the watermelon is too expensive.

But today, oh, today it was absolutely crazy. First of all, the shop was messy as usual, with huge crates full of merchandise smack in between the aisles so it wasn’t possible to pass through. They always do this, they unpack the merchandise at noon, when it is already full with shoppers.

I was waiting in line to get my stuff scanned.

Woman: “Excuse me, do you have a Carrefour card?”

Me: “Yes, I have”.

Woman: “Could you buy these two jars of spaghetti sauce for me, on your card? They are on sale if you have a card. I’ll pay you back cash”.

Me: “OK, no problem”.

But, we soon discovered there was another lady who was after me in line and in front of the lady with the jars. So, I had to wait for the cashier to scan her stuff. But…before she even started, an old man with a cane and two packs of cheese moved in front of her.

Man: “Can I scan these? I am in a hurry, I have to go to the hospital”.

Everybody agrees.

Man (to the cashier): “And while you’re at it, bring me a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes.”

SAY WHAT???

Everybody protests.

The line is getting longer and longer. The cashier has to leave her seat in order to bring the man the cigarettes (they are somewhere else entirely in the shop).

The man pays and says: “Where is the customer service here?”

Cashier:” Why? What’s the problem?”

Man: “I want to complain about the high prices you have at Carrefour”.

Everybody begins speaking at once.

“Why didn’t you someplace else if it is expensive here?”, somebody asks.

“You aren’t in a hurry any more”, adds somebody else.

The cashier, on the PA system, asks for help. Nobody comes.

A nice young woman convinces him to go somewhere else to buy stuff if he is not pleased with the prices.

The man leaves. The cashier resumes her work. The woman after me has three carrots, one zucchini, one kohlrabi, one fennel, two pots of yoghurt, a bag of pasta and some other small items. She pays and leaves. The woman with the sauce jars finishes too, and gives me the money she owes me. 12 effing shekels. I would’ve gone home instead of waiting for one bloody half an hour.

Finally, I exist the shop. The nice young woman in line after us had to wait to pay for a quarter of a watermelon.

 

 

She Really Gets Me, But No Arts and Crafts

 

Today, my daughter and I talked about death. Mine, more exactly. We were in my bedroom, trying to tidy up the mess a bit and she said:

“Mum, please, before you die, just get rid of some of your stuff, O.K?”

I told her no way I am going to throw away my stuff while I am still alive and that she can get rid of everything after I die and not before. But she was: ”Oh, mum, I couldn’t…I couldn’t just throw your things away. You know what? I’ll burry you with them…”

I reminded her that I didn’t want to be buried, you know, in a grave, in the ground. She promised me some time ago she’ll arrange for me to be cremated.

So I added: “You can send me in style. Put me on a raft, on the Sea of Galilee, with my fake jewelry and my candles and my skincare and set me on fire”.

“Mum, I cannot do that! It’s illegal”.

And we laughed and laughed…

“Ok, then cremation it is.”

“You know that the ashes of a cremated body can be stored for a long time. I’ll keep you at home. In a jar.”

“Listen, no crazy stuff with my ashes, Ok?” I replied. “No arts and crafts and stuff like that. Don’t put me in places I wouldn’t like to be. Just take me to Romania. Scatter my ashes over the lake at Valea Draganului. Or bury me under a tree, in the forest near the lake.”

“How am I going to get you there?” she asked, practical, as usual.

“Well…after I die we’ll have to improvise… just dress me nicely, put me in a wheelchair and take me on a plane. Tell them, I’m sorry, my mother is sleeping. Problem solved.”

We laughed until we were breathless. And then we cried.

She really gets me, my daughter.

Random Thoughts in the Morning

 

Today, I am drinking my coffee alone, my husband went to the hospital because he is still unwell. The treatment he receives and all the medication that comes with it makes him nauseous and hurting all over. A good friend, the best, actually, took him, because he cannot drive in his condition. Before he left, he told me- “You stay at home, it will do you good”. In a sense, it’s true. Each visit to the hospital steals a piece of my soul. So much suffering, it breaks my heart.

So, I told myself I would sit for a while with a cup of coffee and clear my thoughts. Only, my thoughts refuse to be cleared. They ask for my attention, like little kids in a crowd, jumping and shouting:” Take me! Me! Me! I am here! Analyze me! Ponder on me!”

And so, instead of sitting calm and serene and do a little meditation, I hyperventilate while chasing my thoughts, trying to tame them, because now , when they had my attention, they started running away from me.

I won’t tell you everything that goes on in my head, no way. Even I don’t know what is really going on in there most of the times. A huge party of over-excited ideas, like teenagers when they first have alcohol; a funeral of good intentions, lines from the books I am reading, fragments of poems I want to write. And worries, worries like an army of buzzing bees relentlessly chasing me; and here and there the fluttering of butterfly wings – good thoughts, usually drowned by the noise of the other annoying insects...

Usually, all these attempts at clearing my thoughts, of cleansing and cleaning leave me frustrated because even if I manage to solve one problem, while patting myself proudly on the shoulder, other problems appear instantly. Annoying bitey ants.

Well, my cup is empty. Didn’t clear my head at all.

Ready for a new day.

While We're Waiting in Line

 

Since my husband is not mobile at the moment, besides my usual chores I am the one responsible for getting his medication for him. That means periodic trips to the pharmacy.

I hate going to the pharmacy, any pharmacy. In Israel they are an entire world by themselves.

The one I usually go to is small and almost always full of people. Sometimes, if weather permits, after I take a number, I go and wait outside. If not, then I have to go inside. At least in summer there is air conditioning.

Today, an old lady, I think from Georgia, has a prescription for Voltaren, unfortunately uncovered by the health insurance.

Old lady: “Why is it so expensive?”

Pharmacist: “That’s the full price. Do you want it or not?”

Old lady: “Yes”.

Pharmacist: “Big or small?”

Old lady: “What?”

Pharmacist: “The tube of ointment. Voltaren. Big or small?”

Old lady: “Show me both of them”.

She takes both tubes and examines them for, it feels like, long minutes.

Old lady: “I want the small one. Why is so expensive?”

Pharmacist: “I ‘ve told you. It is not covered by the health insurance”.

Old lady: “Why?”

Pharmacist: “I don’t know. It simply isn’t”.

Old lady: “I don’t want it anymore. It is too expensive. I think I have one at home, anyway”.

Gives the tube back to the pharmacist and exits the room. Comes back after a few minutes and inserts herself between the counter and another person that’s already there.

Old lady: “I’ve changed my mind. I want the ointment.”

Pharmacist: “You have to wait until I’ve finished with him”, points at the person that looks baffled at the old lady.

Finally, after much debate that lasted at least ten minutes, concerning the dimensions of the tube, the quantity of the ointment and the number of times it should be applied, the old lady leaves with a small tube of Voltaren.

Oh my, that pharmacist, she had the patience of a saint.

At another counter, another old lady. Small and frail, with a Superman cap on her head.

Pharmacist: “You have to take the medicine with a meal”.

Superman cap lady: “Why?”

Pharmacist: “You shouldn’t take it on an empty stomach; it could hurt it”.

Superman cap lady: “But I always take it on an empty stomach!”

After another long debate about the rights and wrongs of taking medicine with or without food, Superman cap lady is not convinced. But leaves with the medicine anyway.

At another counter, a very old man, crooked like a question mark over his walker, shouts in Russian. I guess he is almost deaf, because the pharmacist shouts back, too. The shouting goes on for several minutes.

Another number is called. A young man, smelling strongly of perspiration, shoves me aside in order to reach the counter.

“Let me pass, lady”, he says angrily. I make myself small to let him pass.

While waiting for my turn (already 50 minutes have passed) I scan the shelves. They have lots of shelves in this tiny room. On one wall and three shelving stands in the middle. As if the room isn’t cramped enough. But it is clearly a marketing strategy, because when I leave the pharmacy, one hour later, beside the medicine for my husband I acquired one shampoo, one tub of toothpaste, some face cream, a hand cream and some vitamins.

Don’t Do It Like I Did It

 

 

Everything went downhill since yesterday afternoon when we returned from my husband’s treatment. He has been feeling poorly since last week and nobody at the hospital was sure why. There were many theories floating around but none of them really helpful.

The last PET scan showed that the lymphoma is almost gone, so everyone was happy. Truth be told, yesterday I saw with my own eyes the differences between the two PET scans my husband had – one at the beginning of the treatment and the other last week. In the first one, I could actually see two dazzling, huge “suns” besides lots of shining stars. That’s how spread and active the disease was. And in the second one, well, almost total blackout, power outage. Here and there, lit candles and that’s it. No spotlights, no glaring supernovas. So, of course the doctors would focus on the positive outcome. And we were really glad, too. But my husband was still feeling unwell. So, they tweaked here and there his medication, added something new and sent us home.

The problem was my husband’s condition went from bad to worse.

He woke me up in the morning telling me he called his friend to drive him to the hospital because he was worse than he was in the evening. He talked to the doctor and he’s waiting for him.

I helped him pack all he needed in case they’d keep him there overnight and after he left, I tried, somehow, to begin my day. Coffee, then clean the house, change the bedsheets, you know, domestic stuff that needed to be done. So far, so good.

What did actually happen?

For once, I kept misplacing my mobile phone. Because I wanted to hear it in case my husband texted me, I took it with me while doing stuff and I kept putting it in all kinds of places.

Luckily, I know how to find it through google, so I did that. Several times.

Because I was so stressed and anxious, I kept dropping stuff. When I opened the fridge food kept falling out of it, stuff I didn’t remember placing inside it. One cup of ready-made coffee fell on the floor and broke, so I grabbed what was closer because the puddle kept getting bigger and bigger. It was a big towel I wanted to throw in the washing machine. After I mopped up the liquid I decided to drop the towel in the shower, to let it soak in some cold water. Of course, I then got tangled in other stuff to do and I realized I forgot the towel in the shower only when the water reached the hall between the rooms, heading to the living room. The drain hole got covered with the towel I threw without looking where, so the water couldn’t drain. I had to deal with the whole situation and after half an hour the water was gone. Bonus – the tiled floor was clean, too.

And I still couldn’t find my phone. Just kept running around like a headless chicken, or, as my Romanian grandma used to say “ ca o goanga fara fir”.

I then proceeded to share my lunch with Klara, our cat, because she is crazy about fish and I was having salmon.

At some point during the day my husband called me from the hospital telling me he decided to come home and I got in a frenzy trying to finish all my chores without doing any damage in the process.

The rest of the day just passed in a blur, trying to convince my husband to eat and drink something, my daughter came home, I went shopping, had dinner, did the dishes and now I am sitting here, in front of the PC, tired and a little dizzy from all the events of the day.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring. I hope I won’t spend the day chasing my phone, flooding the hallway, breaking cups or forgetting towels in the shower. More than that, I hope my husband wakes up feeling a little better.

It seems that some days are really determined to test how many things one person can juggle before everything begins slipping through their fingers.

Today was one of those days.

Tomorrow, please be kinder.

Down Memory Lane, One Golden Fry at a Time

 

Today, for the first time in a while, I fried potatoes on the stove, in a frying pan.  I usually bake them in the oven, it is easier, less mess and healthier, too.

Whenever I fry potatoes, I think of them as “cartofi pai” as we call them in Romanian – “straw potatoes” and I am instantly back in time as a child in communist Romania. Having “cartofi pai” at lunch was really a special occasion. My grandma didn’t approve of them because you had to use a lot of cooking oil and oil was on the ration card. So, whenever my gran wasn’t at home (something that seldom happened) we asked our mother to make us “cartofi pai”.

I can still see all four of us waiting impatiently as the heavenly smell of frying potatoes filled the house. We would grab them the moment they were ready, burning the roofs of our mouths because waiting another minute simply wasn't an option. Then came the real competition: keeping a watchful eye on everyone else's plate, ready to rescue a golden fry from any distracted sibling.

Of course there weren’t enough for everyone – we were four kids, and we had to fight for every morsel, every piece of “straw”. If we were lucky we would also receive one fried egg, ou ochi – “egg eye” in Romanian. And if we were really good, pickled cucumbers, a delicacy only my gran could make. All eaten with copious quantities of bread.

When we were kids we ate a lot of bread with or instead our meals. It was cheaper and there were times when there wasn’t enough food for all of us on the table to eat our fill. Our favorite was “piine cu unsoare” – bread and dripping. With a pinch of salt, some black pepper and paprika. And when times were really bad and money scarce, bread with mustard. I’ve no idea why even during the darkest days of communism, when grocery shops were empty, you could find jars and jars of mustard on the shelves.

So today I am thankful to the humble potato because it took me on a trip down memory lane. Even though I was a child during a difficult period in Romania's history, and my childhood was different from that of many other children, it was also a time of discovery and wonder, of small pleasures and quiet joys that I will never forget.