This week I arrived, and not for the first time, at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem.<\/p>\r\n
After a long time of standing in exhausting traffic jams, we finally arrived at the place of rest and relaxation -\u00a0''Hadassah-Main Entrance'. <\/span><\/p>\r\n The main entrance to the hospital is through a small shopping mall - a crowded commercial center. However,<\/span>I didn't come to the hospital to hang out at the mall. My destination was: the pulmonary department.<\/p>\r\n 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.<\/span><\/p>\r\n 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.<\/p>\r\n What do you say? The waiting times are longer than usual.<\/p>\r\n 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.<\/p>\r\n 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?!"\"<\/p>\r\n The commotion reached the hospital director, who eventually enlisted help for the unfortunate clerk.<\/p>\r\n \u00a0This is what a hospital looked like in 2016.<\/p>\r\n Who is stressed by coughing?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\r\n 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?"\"<\/p>\r\n I said: I - and I am waiting for the x test.<\/p>\r\n The nurses and technicians were hysterical about me.<\/p>\r\n It's terribly ironic that they work at the lung institute and are stressed by a coughing person.<\/p>\r\n I told them that the department manager knows me, that it's not contagious and there's no need to panic.<\/p>\r\n 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.<\/p>\r\n 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.<\/p>\r\n \u00a0The 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.<\/p>\r\n 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.<\/p>\r\n She told me the following sentence: "Don't be offended by people, they just don't understand.".<\/p>\r\n Why do people laugh at those who are different?<\/b><\/p>\r\n I adopted the phrase. I didn't think I would use it so quickly.<\/p>\r\n 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?<\/p>\r\n So the apologist, if you read my story you will know that I truly forgave. Overall, it is natural.<\/p>\r\n 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.<\/p>\r\n I had to rest for an hour between tests.<\/p>\r\n 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.<\/p>\r\n 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.<\/p>\r\n So think for a moment before you mock others.<\/p>\r\n Imagine if you were standing in their place.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almog Lizarovich, who suffers from a chronic lung disease, which forced him to spend long hours in the hospital, summarizes his collection of experiences in a column that reveals the insight: "There's no need to be hurt by people - they simply don't understand."'","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[138],"tags":[7702,21,10143],"class_list":["post-240609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-138","tag-7702","tag-21","tag-10143"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n