This week I arrived, and not for the first time, at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem.
After a long time of standing in exhausting traffic jams, we finally arrived at the place of rest and relaxation - ''Hadassah-Main Entrance'.
The main entrance to the hospital is through a small shopping mall - a crowded commercial center. However,I didn't come to the hospital to hang out at the mall. My destination was: the pulmonary department.
Unfortunately, before you even receive the required treatment - an examination, surgery, or any other medical procedure - you have to get to the 4th floor. There, next to a single secretary, all the hospital visitors, from all departments, gather, each with a commitment from the health insurance company as requested. Each person according to their needs.
When I arrived to receive treatment, I could not have imagined the dire situation. Could one clerk receive all the hospital visitors from all the departments? Well, that's exactly what happened. A line of dozens of people - and one stressed clerk.
What do you say? The waiting times are longer than usual.
And if you think people here didn't compensate for the situation - you were wrong. After all, we are dealing with Israelis. They said to the clerk, over and over again: Why are you alone? How can you take care of the entire hospital? She, for her part, replied that she was already used to it.
I was supposed to see the doctor at 10:00 AM and I got in at 11:30 AM, after an hour and a half of tedious waiting. And as expected, just as I reached the receptionist, one of the people in charge stood up and raised her voice: "Why are you alone here, why don't you have help, can't you control everyone here?!""
The commotion reached the hospital director, who eventually enlisted help for the unfortunate clerk.
This is what a hospital looked like in 2016.
Who is stressed by coughing?
I barely had time to cross the threshold of the department, and the clerks were already raising their voices, asking: "Who's that coughing like that?""
I said: I - and I am waiting for the x test.
The nurses and technicians were hysterical about me.
It's terribly ironic that they work at the lung institute and are stressed by a coughing person.
I told them that the department manager knows me, that it's not contagious and there's no need to panic.
I came to do tests that were difficult for me, and I should have done them a long time ago. But with a pulmonologist like mine - who says: "They won't find anything new for you that I said in the tests, it's a waste of time, besides the fact that they're not pleasant at all. But you should do it anyway sometime just to be safe" - I wasn't in a particular hurry.
But the army decided that I had to undergo the tests, as the doctor had recommended in the past. In other words, there was no choice.
The lung function tests were not easy for me. During the tests, I was required not to cough at all, which was difficult in itself and involved a lot of effort.
I won't bother you with unnecessary information, and I'll get to the point: I had a patient technician who understood the complicated situation and the difficulty of performing tests in my condition.
She told me the following sentence: "Don't be offended by people, they just don't understand.".
Why do people laugh at those who are different?
I adopted the phrase. I didn't think I would use it so quickly.
The next day, I received an apology from a guy who studied with me, who apologized to me for laughing with someone else, behind my back, about my cough. I received the apology from the bottom of my heart, and then a thought crossed my mind: Was it intentional or is it actually human nature to see the norm as a sacred value, and anyone with a disability, or a slight difference from the norm, worthy of ridicule?
So the apologist, if you read my story you will know that I truly forgave. Overall, it is natural.
Meanwhile, the technician saw that I was having trouble filling my lungs with air, and activated software that simulates every respiratory action - blowing out candles, flying a kite, filling lungs with air, and more. All, she said, in order to help people pass the test, since ultimately everything is psychosomatic, which made me think that once you have a goal in mind, you do everything to realize your desire.
I had to rest for an hour between tests.
After all the effort I put in, I went out to rest, which I took advantage of at the cafe. I was left with a hole in my pocket, great fatigue, and the thought that something better was always waiting for me around the corner.
And another final insight that occurred to me while drinking coffee: the technician was disabled. That's probably why she felt empathy with people's misunderstanding and behavior towards her, sometimes below all criticism.
So think for a moment before you mock others.
Imagine if you were standing in their place.
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