Dear God, Ummm....do you like pancakes?

Every year I do something to celebrate my bombing anniversary. Some years I do festive Shabbat dinners. One year I had real party complete with alcohol, but without the loud music. (My friends were so pleasantly surprised that I actually served alcohol that they did not think to complain about the lack of music. But—hello—my party and my house…why should I not be able to hear?). Last year, I bought a bicycle. In short, I have yet to do anything that could be remotely classified as commemoration, contemplation or an expression of gratitude to G-d. My friends' annual rendition of "happy bombing anniversary to you—we're glad you're not dead" does not quite hit the sensitive note generally called for in a commemorative event. As for expressions of gratitude, I suppose one could argue that the bike acquisition was kind of like turning my face to the heavens and saying to G-d: "Yeah, well...bite me."

(Luckily, He has not taken me up on that yet, but then, I am going biking tomorrow. If I get hit by a Mack truck, we will all know why. Of course, I am hoping that the bemused good humor holds….)

To get back to, and perhaps even complete the subject, I suppose that this is all part of the attitude I have adopted towards my bombing, which can be summed up as: If you absolutely, positively must be in bombing (which we do not recommend, as it tends to fatal, or at least highly injurious), but anyway, if you MUST…you may as well have a good time with it.

As you might imagine, not everyone shares my views. Similar to my views on trauma, every once in a while these vast differences in world view result in my completely putting my foot in it. Take the conversation I had with my friend, Inna who was seriously injured in the July 2002 bombing at Hebrew University. Her one year-anniversary had just passed and (do not ask me how) we got on the subject of what she did to mark the date. Without thought, and in fact without even asking her what she had done, I jumped into my usual memorial-ceremony-bashing-shtick: how the ceremonies are stupid, how all of this self-conscious melodrama is stupid, how having a party is so much more fun and/or appropriate. Of course, not only was she not having a party, but she did go to a ceremony and furthermore, she found the ceremony to be very meaningful. I cannot remember how I got out of that one; I probably just mumbled something like "Oh-yes, but of course, Hebrew University would have one—you guys are an academic institution—and my bombing…hell, we are just a bunch of Kmart shoppers". She bought it, and she is still my friend. Or she did not buy it and is pretending to be my friend for the cookies? Wait…I will have to ask her about that…. Okay, just got off the phone. Inna reports that 1) she remembers the conversation, 2) she still goes to the annual ceremonies and 3) she is still my friend both for the cookies AND because she had already taken the trouble to put me through the exclusive "Inna's friends training course", in which one learns all sorts of useful skills, like how to push a wheelchair over gravel, up over curbs, up the stairs, etc. all without dumping Inna onto the ground. Israel is not exactly what one would call handicapped-accessible. From Inna's point of view, I may be something of an idiot, but I am a useful idiot. (Hi Inna!)

Anyway, the point of all this is that my sixth bombing anniversary is April 12. This year, after much reflection, I have decided that the time has come for me to adopt a more mature attitude toward the day, to allow G-d in, to incorporate Judaism into my celebration of this day. Therefore, this year, I am having a pancake party.

Now I realize that, for some of you, and in particular the Christian somes of you, the connection between "pancakes" and "Judiasm" or "G-d" might be somewhat unclear. Allow me to cast some light. Pesach (Passover) is coming. During Pesach, Jews are commanded to eat no chametz, or leavened bread. Typical Pesach preparations include house cleaning to downright obsessive levels in order to rid the house of anything currently chametz or possessed of the ability to become chametz in the future. For example, I have two bags of flour in my freezer. Flour is an essential ingredient in bread. The flour must be used before Pesach or I will have to throw it out. I have a bag of chocolate chips. Chocolate chips can be added to bread dough to make chocolate bread. I have chocolate ice-cream, which is commonly coupled with chocolate bread to make chocolate ice-cream sandwiches.

Ergo, chocolate chip pancakes with a side of chocolate ice cream=Pesach cleaning =religious observance. I hope that this clarifies matters.

Alternatively, I suppose that one could also interpret the pancakes as a hidden message to G-d. "Dear G-d, I am sorry for being such a snot. Please do not turn me into one of these while I am riding my bike. Thank you. Much love, Gila". But frankly, I would rather not.

(What, you thought I was going to say I was going to say "prayer service"? Nu, be'emet....)

Perspective

One caveat....this article was written nearly six years ago. I look much better now!

Though I have (unfortunately) managed to gain back all the weight (and then some) that I lost on the exclusive and oh-so-fab Machane Yehuda bombing Diet Plan.

If only I would get off the computer and get the butt to a gym....

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June 2002

I am not dealing with the bombing nearly as well as everyone seems to think that I am. Everyone comments on my good attitude and how I am so “up” and positive and optimistic. Me, I don’t know if I would use those words. I am practical. I am pragmatic. I am good at putting things into perspective. Nonetheless, there are places where this ability has failed me completely and I have become hysterical.

The medical, financial and career related issues are easy enough to deal with. Yes, I was hospitalized for two weeks and was in danger of losing my sight. Yes, I am still undergoing treatment, and will be for the foreseeable future. But it could have been worse. Perhaps it should have been worse, seeing how close I was to the terrorist. I was actually unbelievably fortunate. As it was, I haven’t lost my sight and none of my other conditions are life threatening. All in all, they constitute a source or irritation and aggravation, not danger. I myself have seen others in far worse shape than am I.

True, I have been unable to work and am looking at a summer of not working or working half-time, at best. I am getting payment for the lost hours from National Insurance, but these are determined based on my salary through March…before the raise I received in April. That being said, if one were to do an accounting, I probably would be found to have come out ahead. The couple thousand shekels I will forgo in salary has been more than made up for by grants I have gotten from organizations which help victims of terror. (Sure, a chunk of that is paying for extra expenses which National Insurance won’t reimburse, but just the same.…) Add in the value of the computer I am typing on (a gift from the Hadassah chapter in DC, and nicer than anything I would have been able to afford) and I really have nothing to complain about.

Emotionally, it is a bit tougher for me to get past the fact that I pretty much lost the entire last semester. I was killing myself to get through my classes to prepare for the accounting boards. I lived, breathed and ate Israeli corporate, constitutional and employment law; I made such an enormous investment of time and energy. At the time of the bombing, the end was in sight. I was about two-thirds of the way through each of the classes and was registered to take the exams in May and June. Now I have to start the classes over and I won’t take the exams until November.

Even here, however, the situation isn’t dire. First of all, I have been set back six months. In the grand scheme of a lifetime (assuming I successfully avoid other life-shortening catastrophes) six months is nothing. As for having to review material I already learned, how well did I learn it in the first place? There is no doubt that I missed a fair amount of the material in the first place, just because of the language barrier. Plus, they offer the exam in English in November. All in all, I will have a far better chance of passing the exams.

So as you can see, up through this point, when I put it into perspective I see that it really is not that bad. I can deal with this.

And then I come to my face, my eyes and my hair…and everything goes to hell.

I have scars on my face. A pink scar is slashed across my forehead and brown spots are scattered on my cheeks, with an extra-large one on the side of my mouth. The right side of my jaw, where I took an extra dose of shrapnel, sports a combination of both brown and pink marks. My friends try to cheer me up by telling me that they look like acne scars. Right. They look like scars.

My right eye is surrounded by raised scars and requires plastic surgery to correct the shape. My eyes are framed by huge eyebrows I am not yet allowed to pluck and glasses I am not sure I like. My eyes are sensitive to light, and when I go out, I have to wear enormous sunglasses that fit over my glasses. You know the ones—the type senior citizens wear after cataract surgery. The only benefit is that no one can see my eyes. It cuts down on the “what happened to her” looks. My eyes are supposed to look normal after my plastic surgery; but what if the surgery isn’t successful? What do I do then?

My forehead, cheeks and jaw are full of shrapnel and are lumpy to the touch. The shrapnel damaged two nerves in my face, leaving portions of the right half of my face numb. You can’t see the lumps or the numbness, but I can feel them. I run my fingers along my jaw and it feels as though there is cotton between the lumpy, mottled skin and my finger. When I use the muscles in my face to speak or smile I feel as though I were stretching stiff rubber. The shrapnel may or may not come out on its own and the numbness may or may not go away.

My hair was shaved around my forehead so doctors could close up a gash on the top of my head with 10 inches of staples and stitches. I have a long white scar centered on top of my head. I cover the area with a headband and take comfort in the fact that my hair is growing in, and that I prefer to part my hair on the side anyway. The real problem is in the back of my head. I have developed a huge bald spot where my hair fell out as a result of the trauma. So far, not only is the bald spot not growing back in, but I believe that it is actually spreading. I am afraid to wash my hair, afraid to brush it, afraid to do anything which might cause more hair to fall out. After a lifetime of playing with my hair, twisting my curls, tossing locks back off my face, I hardly dare touch it. There is one exception. My bald spot is still covered by other hair, but it may be only a matter of time before that falls out. Whenever I move my head to the side I gingerly touch the area. Is the bald spot exposed? Is the hair which covers it thinning out? I am even more terrified by the prospect that my hair may never grow back, or will grow back thin or straight or both.

It is just not fair. I never saw myself as being particularly pretty but the weekend before the bombing I felt beautiful. I had started exercising very intensively about six weeks before and had lost quite a bit of weight. My roommate had a Shabbat lunch and I remember dressing for it quite carefully. Tan pants which showed off my improved figure. A simple white button- down shirt that fit me just so. My gold and silver watch, received for my graduation and simple silver earrings. My eyes and complexion were enhanced with neutral, barely- there makeup. I may or may not have put on foundation. I really did not need it, a point my roommate much envied. To complete the look—my hair gathered up into a simple knot on the back of my head. My version of a Grace Kelly look. I do not remember exactly how I looked, but I remember precisely how I felt: lovely. Less than one week later, all of my good features: my eyes, my complexion and my hair were destroyed, just shot straight to hell. And it doesn’t matter if I have makeup or headbands to hide the damage. I know it is there. I know that I am an ugly woman and that there is a fighting good chance that this is all I will ever be.

Sometimes, I look in the mirror and am struck by the overwhelming sense that I almost look like me. It is surreal. In the space of an explosive second, I disappeared, and was replaced by someone who is almost, but not quite, me. I look in the mirror, and see a stranger with a scarred face and thinning hair and I think, “I will never really be me again”. How do you deal with that? How can I possibly put this into perspective?

How can I put into perspective the fact that no one is going to want an ugly me? What hope is there for me? I am already 31 and I never had much luck in the romance department. The last “long-term” relationship I had lasted for about two months, and took place six years ago. In the 4 ½ years before the bombing, I had no boyfriends, and virtually no dates. No one thought I was interesting or pretty or anything enough to even invite me out for a cup of coffee. And now this happens. If no one wanted me then, who the hell will want me now? Or consider the flip side, even if someone were to ask me out, how could I possibly accept? I cannot, in a million years, ever imagine kissing a guy so long as I have a face like this; so long as humiliation is barely hidden under a headband and foundation. What else can I do but panic?

My doctors, my friends and my family tell me: wait. In a year, two years, I will see, it will get better. The pink scars will fade. There are creams to clean up the brown spots on my face. There are lasers to clean up the blue spots on my arms and legs. My hair will grow back—normally it starts within a year. Relax. Don’t panic. Give it a year. Give it two. Did I mention I am 31? Did I mention my birthday is in September? I’ll be 32? Did I mention that I was already thinking about looking into freezing eggs? How many years do I have anyway, before it is too late?

How can I put this into perspective? How do I rationalize this away? Unlike the health, the finances and the classes, there is no “at the same time” or “however”. There is no bright side. I lost something and I am simply not going to get it back. I have been taken away and been replaced by someone with a far lonelier, bleaker future.

What the hell do I do now?

To all the lurkers out there....

....I was wondering if you would mind checking in, and letting me know where you are lurking (country/ state/ etc).

No particular reason--just curiousity. I did think of adding one of those little map things, but this is more fun.

Thanks!

Gila

Life as a Poor Sad Victim of Terror ®

June 2002

Some of you might be curious as to what the life of an official Poor Sad Victim of Terror ® is like. What do we do? How do we find meaning in our shattered lives? I do not know how representative I am, but as I am probably the only Poor Sad Victim of Terror ® that most of you know, you will have to make do with me. My days have been spent: shopping, visiting every last doctor at Hadassah and giving mounds and mounds of paper to National Insurance. Come! Let me take you into my life!

(Feel free to sob openly at the pathos of it all).

SHOPPING
True, unless one is buying a bathing suit, pathos is probably not the most applicable word. Nonetheless, shopping is not nearly as much fun as it sounds. Despite the amazing success of the one-and-only "Machane Yehuda Bombing Diet Plan", my time at the mall has not been spent clothes shopping, but rather it has been dedicated to a crazed search for a computer desk. It became my passion, my obsession, my version of the Holy Grail: to find the perfect computer desk.

I was ultimately successful, and I am now typing at my new desk. I must tell you, I cannot dress well to save my life (another reason for me not to spend too much time clothes shopping), but when it comes to picking computer desks, I rule. My desk fits perfectly into the one open corner in my room AND has shelves for my printer and scanner AND shelves for random crap AND room for my screen AND did I mention that it really is a perfect fit AND I am going to shut up now, because I don’t want you to be insane with jealousy. Though you should be.

And yet, there is a dark cloud to this silver lining. Despite this amazing success and my newfound happiness, my obsession troubles me. Call me superstitious, but the last two purchases that I got so mental over were my glasses and my leather Naot mini-boots. Both items were destroyed in the bombing. Coincidence? I think not. Clearly, something is going to befall my desk. More to the point, I am concerned that whatever befalls my desk will befall me as well. Granted, the chances of my bringing my desk to the bus stop are rather low (I am not allowed to lift over 10 kilos, and besides, where would I put my computer?), but that befalling something could come into the apartment. While I don’t expect a terrorist to barge in, it is theoretically possible, for example, for a car or other large, destructive object to come crashing through my window, and land on my desk. Or it would be theoretically possible, but for the minor details that my apartment is: 1) on the second floor, 2) in the back of the building and 3) faces a tree filled lot and not a road. So, in this case, “theoretically possible” has the same weight as it does in the sentence “It is theoretically possible that Bibi Netanyahu is actually a giant squid”.

Though, to be quite frank, that really would not surprise me either.

WHY HADASSAH NEEDS TO GIVE ME A COT
In what can only be described as an outstanding show of courage and strength, despite the deep, dark shadow of doom lurking over me and my desk, I have managed to stay focused on my recovery. In the process, I have accumulated an impressive collection of medical personnel. At this point, I am up to eleven different medical professionals working on various aspects of my case. If you factor in the fact that every time I go to Plastic Surgery I get a different doctor then the numbers are even higher. For my purposes, I tend to view the plastic surgeons as one person whose name and appearance go through radical changes, and whose memory of my case mysteriously vanishes after each visit. The humorous part of all this is that I am not in bad shape at all, and in fact I am well enough to work full time, but unfortunately, am so busy with doctors appointments that I do not have time, and am stuck at two hours work per day.

Why do I have so many doctors? In part, the volume is attributable to my having a large number of smaller, irritating problems, My jaw muscle is damaged, parts of my face are numb, I have lots and lots of shrapnel, my eardrums have big holes in them and so on. The rest of the increase is through a game popular with medical personnel: “Bounce”. The object of the game is to see patients without treating them.

Here is how it goes. You go to a doctor with a problem. The doctor evaluates the problem. The doctor’s goal is to figure out how NOT to treat you. Based on how creatively he does this, he earns points. The department with the most points gets a toaster. The scoring system is as follows:

5 points: The doctor says that your problem is untreatable, or that it may be treatable, but that success isn’t actually 100% guaranteed, and so he isn’t going to try. Then he tells you to go away. Doctors don’t get a lot of points for this one because it doesn’t really call for much creativity. In fact, according to my roommate, this is the standard operating procedure for Israeli doctors. She explained that doctors would much rather not treat you because treating you is more work than not treating you. (I do have to admit that there is a certain logic to that). In response, Israeli patients have learned to ignore the doctors, and just continue to make appointments. As Pnina put it, “doctors are State employees, and they have to see you”.

10 points: The doctor tells you that your problem is treatable, but not right now, and that you will have to wait some indeterminate amount of time before he does anything. The trick is coming up with a plausible reason for the problem not being treatable. “The body should be given a chance to heal itself” is plausible. “Elul is a bad month for medical procedures involving your kidneys because the spirit of the month can create negative vibes that hinder recovery” is not plausible, unless the patient is from California, or affiliated with one of the crunchier Hassidic sects (Breslev, Carlbach, etc).

20 points: The doctor refers you to another doctor and/or department.

On occasion, if s/he is tired or not feeling creative or just generally just not feeling up to playing, the doctor will just treat the problem. In that case s/he gets no points. Most of my doctors fall into the five and ten-point categories, but certain departments have racked up an impressive amount of 20 pointers during the course of my treatment. Plastic surgery is the most skilled by far, probably because I really am not quite sure what they are supposed to be doing in there anyway. Whenever I go, and it does not matter what I go there for, they tell me that cannot treat me for a year, and in any event, I should go to Dermatology or to a specialist within plastic surgery to discuss the issue further. Maxilofacialar is also proving to be a real contender—they referred me to two different doctors in one appointment alone. (I was there because of damage to my jaw, and the doctor ended up referring me to a specialist for treatment of a scar on my arm. I think he got bonus points for that). Departments who are more closely associated with a particular bodily organ just cannot compete.

All in all, my medical personnel are multiplying like rabbits. Every week, I think to myself: “this week we will actually solve medical problems and next week I will only have two appointments and will be able to work half-time”. By the end of the week, the two appointments for the upcoming week have somehow become five or six, and nothing is solved. To top it off, all of these appointments have to be paid for, which means I have to supply…

PAPERWORK TO NATIONAL INSURANCE
National Insurance gets copies of everything. So far, I have turned in the following:

• Copy of my discharge letter, noting the treatment I would need in the future
• Copy of my discharge letter, amended to include the minor point (forgotten by the physician) that I no longer have eardrums, and as such, treatment by an ENT would be advisable
• Receipts for medical supplies, cabs to doctors’ appointments and prescriptions. All of these have to be neatly taped to pieces of paper and submitted with descriptions and a summary sheet showing amounts due by type and total amounts due. Or at least, I think they have to be. I cannot help myself; I am an anal-retentive CPA. If I were a real Israeli I would probably just toss the receipts into a plastic bag and drop the bag off at National Insurance with a note asking for money.
• Letters from my doctor saying that I cannot work, or that I can only work part time.
• Copy of my eyeglass prescription and the receipt for the glasses
• A letter from my ophthalmologist, explicitly stating that I need glasses, because the fact I had surgery on both of my eyes, and had a test for eyeglasses and I am (based on the prescription) pretty much blind as a bat, is not sufficient support.
• Referrals from doctors authorizing me to visit yet another department in the hospital.
• Referrals from doctors authorizing me to visit private physical therapists not in the hospital. Why should Hadassah get all the fun?
• Copies of every other piece of paper I receive from doctors and/or the hospital. I have no idea if National Insurance needs them—I send them just to be sure. What the hell.
• “Hazmanot” (invitations) for each and every appointment I schedule at the hospital.
  

The last item is, by far, my favorite. The way it works is that I get printouts from the hospital when I schedule appointments. I then send in the printouts to National Insurance. National Insurance reviews the appointments, and sends me individual confirmations, stating that they will pay. Yes! For each and every appointment with each of the ten (10), no sorry, as of today that it now eleven (11) doctors I am seeing, I have to get a confirmation. You might wonder, what would happen if, say, I were to get up in the morning and realize that I never received the confirmation for the appointment I had in plastic surgery at 9:30? At first, my solution was to make a panicked call to my National Insurance social worker to beg her to have a confirmation sent. But now I am wiser and far, far, far more experienced in the Israeli medical system and I have discovered that I can just hand over my Macabbi health insurance card to the clerks and let them bill Macabbi. That way, Macabbi gets to hound National Insurance, thus saving me time and energy. I think this is a far better solution than my doing it.

My second favorite item is the receipts. Receipts rank high in my list because, theoretically, National Insurance is going to give me the money back. I have not seen any cash yet, but Eli, the National Insurance clerk assigned to my case, has assured me that I am getting much closer. As I mentioned, I was recently officially recognized me as a Poor Sad Victim of Terror ®. This is actually a good thing, because now my payment for the period of hospitalization and recuperation can be approved and will hit my account in a week and I will start getting reimbursed for expenses within two weeks. Granted, one has to take into account differences between the standard definition of the word “week”: seven days, and its definition according to National Insurance: “random period of time which generally starts out with a base of seven days and is then, in accordance to some formula known (or not known) only to National Insurance, increased in some number of intervals of ten days”. Nonetheless, this is a step in the right direction.

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UPDATE

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Quietus Leo has just informed me that doctors really do play Bounce, but that they use the term "turf". "Bounce" is when the turf returns to its own department.

And you guys all thought I was being paranoid, didn't you? Vindication is MINE!

Home

“What was to become of Gila” was a topic of much discussion while I was in the hospital. No one was particularly enthralled with the concept of sending me home, where I would have to deal with everything on my own. (By this point, it had become clear that my roommate was not going to be a particular pillar of support). The hospital social worker, Barbara Jacobson, was in favor of my going to a sort of resort for a week. National Insurance was willing to pay for me and one friend; it would allow me the opportunity to recuperate in peace and quiet. Other ideas that were tossed around: my cousins in Ramat HaSharon, the parents of one of my friends who own a home with a garden in Zichron Yaakov and friends in Jerusalem with an extra bedroom.

I rejected all offers. I was adamant. I wanted to go home.

While he was here, my father got to know some of my friends. In particular, he really clicked with Nomi and Michael Albert. At some point, he and the Alberts decided that I would spend my first days of freedom with them. I cannot remember now if I was involved in the decision-making process, or how I felt about the delay in my going to my own home, but in retrospect, it was the best decision possible. The day I was discharged, I was exhausted and in a state of mental shock and was not in any condition to take care of myself. My father is a physician and it is entirely possible that he knew that this was coming.

And indeed, the days with my friends served as the breather I needed in order to get my head back on and take control of the situation. Nomi and her family made sure I rested—she actually instructed her two sons, ages sixteen and seven, to keep a close eye on me in that regard—fed me lots of homemade soup, kept the number and length of visits in check and got me through the first day of outpatient visits (itself a challenge). Shabbat I spent with Galia and Steve; we all agreed that I owed them a Shabbat since I had rudely not shown up the last time I was invited.

And yet, as kind and caring as my friends were, and as obvious as it was that I really needed the TLC, I spent the entire time chafing at the bit. I did not want to be with them. I wanted to go home.

On Sunday, April 28 Galia loaded my stuff into her car and drove over to my apartment. We walked up the stairs together. With one hand I held onto the groceries I had bought on Friday, and with the other I held onto Galia as she guided me up the stairs to my door. Pnina had made me a set of keys to replace my set that was missing. I inserted the key in the lock, twisted and opened the door.

Home.

Galia brought up my stuff and put it in my room. I thanked her, and she left to go to work. I shut the door. For the first time since the bombing, I was really and truly alone. Excitement bubbled up. I could make myself a cup of coffee! I went to the kitchen, put my groceries in the fridge, and made myself a cup of instant coffee which I then sat and quietly enjoyed.

To this day, that moment ranks as one of the happiest moments of my life. After two weeks of being a patient, a statistic and a victim, it was lovely to be once again be a ben adam, a human being.

A Unit of One

I arrived home to an empty refrigerator. Within a day or so it was full. The cleaning woman arranged for by National Insurance did a massive shopping trip for me and made me a pot of soup and a local chesed group brought me prepared meals. None of this diminishes the fact that I came home to bare shelves, save for those items that I bought and carried in myself.

In retrospect, this was the worst. I say in retrospect because at the time, it was not so bad. At the time, it actually felt rather cool. "Look how tough I am! My roommate does not have time to pick up milk and cottage cheese for me? Who needs her? I can take care of myself". After two weeks of being completely helpless and dependent, any chance to be self-sufficient was a delight. Looking back, however, I find the scene to be absolutely horrific. The mental image I have of myself—a pathetic, battered, blinded creature, being gently led up the stairs to my apartment as I clutch in my free hand a small sack of groceries—is so pitiable that it makes me want to cry.

This is not to say that people did not care. The opposite is true. From the very first day, people I knew and people I had never met showered me with gifts, help and offers of more help where that came from. Friends and strangers, individual volunteers and big organizations all pitched in to aid in my recovery and recuperation. They filled my hospital room with chocolate, flowers and stuffed animals, filled my prescriptions, arranged for my phone to be replaced and offered (and gave) financial assistance. My friends and my roommate's friends made sure that my days and evenings were packed with visitors. My American friends helped to keep my quieter moments entertaining with packages of large-print books and books on tape. Since the damage to my eyes made reading Hebrew tiring, the director of a local Anglo community center took a few hours out of his evening to come over and read to me the National Insurance pamphlet explaining my rights. And since I could not see well enough to venture out alone, friends, volunteers and one National Insurance home-help aide all took time out of their days to accompany me to the hospital, the bank, the mall and anywhere else that required going to. My every need and desire was provided for, be it scarves and headbands to cover my bald spot, dental floss and deodorant, or a night out at a Chinese restaurant.

Everything was filled save for my refrigerator. It could have been full. I know I could have asked someone to go shopping for me. Any number of people would have been not just happy, but literally thrilled to help. But asking for help is brutal and accepting help is worse. It makes no difference whatsoever that that the request is justified. It was all I could do to ask my roommate, and when she could not (I think she was out of town), it was almost with a sense of relief that I said to her and to myself "well, okay, I will do it myself". And so I did. When a friend came to visit me, I asked her to walk me to the corner store where I bought cottage cheese and milk, by myself and with my money.

Since that day, I have undergone four surgeries and one radiation treatment. I have become a sort of expert in the art of coming home from the hospital. Before I leave, I always make sure that my house is clean, that my laundry is all done, a pot of soup is cooked and that my refrigerator is full. Each and every time, this process of cooking soup and filling the refrigerator has the same exact effect: to fill me with melancholy.
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About two years ago, I had a conversation with a man whose daughter was seriously injured in another bombing. He described the battle they had waged with National Insurance in order to get her certain benefits. At the end of his story, I looked at him. "Tikva had you to do all of this for her. She did not have to any of this?" He responded in the affirmative; whether he felt disappointed or chastened by my response I am not sure. He expected me to listen to the conversation, hear what he said about the fight they had waged, to compare it with my own, somewhat lackluster fight, and to be impressed. Instead, all I heard was the word "We".

More recently, in the fall of 2007, a co-worker's wife became seriously ill. My co-worker spent several weeks at his wife's side in the hospital. As chance would have it, this was around the same time that I underwent two surgeries on my eyes—another remnant from the bombing. The first surgery involved my being hospitalized over Yom Kippur, when the roads are literally closed. The second surgery required only an overnight stay; I did not bother to tell people I was being admitted. As a result, a good chunk of this time in the hospital was spent visitor-free. I had this in mind when I spoke to my co-worker on the phone. Even as listened to him describe his wife's condition and made all of the correct responses, in the back of my head, again, all I heard was the "we". She was not going it alone.

We did this. We hired a lawyer. We submitted forms. We are stuck in a hospital. Not Tikva, even though it was her injury. Not my co-worker's wife, even though she was the one who was sick. The family, the husbandwifemotherfathersisterbrother together. We.

"We", means that that the two or three or four….are actually a unit of one. "We" means that help is received by right. Help is received on demand, or even before demand. But I have no we. I am my own unit of one. In my world, help is for the asking.

I have to ask, to beg, to grovel. To ask means it is not self-evident. To ask means that the "askee" can say "yes" or "no". To ask means that it is charity. To ask means that I am a charity case—either because I cannot do on my own or because I lack anyone to do for me. My unit has only one. To ask means that the help will be limited, in accordance with the schedule and the needs and the personal strengths and weaknesses of the person being asked. I cannot demand. I cannot expect. I can only…ask.

And how much can I ask, anyway? Can I really ask another person to put his or her life on hold for a day or two days or a week to sit with me in the hospital? Can I really ask another person to put his or her life on hold for a month in order that she or he be available to come with me to doctor appointments—all so that I do not have to spend hours lining up individual volunteers to do accompany me to each and every appointment? Can I really ask another person to go to bat with National Insurance for me, to do all of the paperwork for me, to deal with all of the doctors for me? To deal with this whole stupid mess? Can I really ask another person to be with me all of the time, so that when I finally break down, there is someone there?

The day I finally broke down, really broke down, I had no one. The stress of the bombing, the medical issues, the administrative mess…everything…had been building up for weeks until it exploded. Over Shavuot I had a meltdown. My roommate was freaked out and pretty much useless. I sat by myself in my room, hysterical, my door closed so I would not disturb my roommate. Suddenly, there was a knock on the front door. By chance or by miracle, Lior and Yael had popped over; Lior’s candle had gone out; could he get a light from Pnina? As soon as Yael saw my state, she ditched Lior and stayed with me until I calmed down. I cried all weekend, and all weekend, like magic, people just appeared. Edith came over. My cousin Talia called—it just so happened that she was going to be in Jerusalem—a once in a blue moon event. Maybe she could stop by? They saved me.

Can I really trust in and depend on G-d to always send a person when I need them?

I hate to be dependent on another. Even when it is God.
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Even G-d has His limits. Yes, I have help and yes, I have support…right up to the door of my house. From that point on, I am alone. There is only so far my friends can accompany me. Without the aspect of obligation, without the "we", we remain our own, separate units. As much as my friends love me, they can turn me and my bombing on, and also off. At a certain point each day, everyone, the friends, the volunteers and the well-wishers all go home and leave me alone with this mess and everything else I did not ask for.

If I never marry, this is what I will miss most: the comfort of knowing that some things are self-evident and do not have to be asked for. B'ezrat haShem, with the help of G-d, I will always be able to manage but this is what I will miss: the feeling of being a part of a functioning unit, instead of the dizzying, hollow sensation that I am the unit— a unit of one. I am alone.

A Long Time, Sweetie

The weekend after I was released at the hospital I went to stay with my friends Galia and Steve. I was simply exhausted and depressed-as much from the challenges of getting used to handling the crisis as from my injuries themselves. Of Friday night Shabbat dinner I have only the foggiest recollections. Saturday morning I woke up, hung out with Galia for a bit and then went down for a nap. I woke up around lunchtime and joined Galia, Steve, Galia's mother, Michal, and their guests for Shabbat lunch.

The meal was a disaster. The damage to my ears made it very difficult for me to participate in the conversation. (It would be two months until I got hearing aids, and a few months more until I learned the essential trick to managing group meals: sit on the end of the table—good ear in, bad ear out.) Beyond that, I was tired and spaced-out. Midway through the Shabbat meal I had to go lie down. Doing so, I felt that my friends and the other guests were rather taken aback by my excusing myself; how come I wasn’t well enough to sit through a meal? I was not offended, rather I agreed with them. It had been two whole weeks. What was wrong with me?

Galia and Steve do not use the phone on Shabbat, and I did not want to disrespect them, but I had to talk to someone. I closed the door to the guest room. I dialed my cousin, Talia. She picked up. I told her that I would have to hang up if anyone came in. Then I started to cry.

"I don't understand. I am so tired. It has been two weeks. I should be better by now".

"Gila, you are being ridiculous. You just went through a bombing. Of course it is going to take a while. You are just an overachiever ".

"But is has been two weeks. I thought I would be a lot better".

"Motek, sweetie, it is going to take a long time".

I don't remember what I said next. I think I may have just cried on the phone.

The Long Day

Fear can make your body do many things. It can make your brain work faster, your legs run harder or your ears more sharp. Or sometimes, it can make everything—your ears, your eyes, your body and your mind—shut down completely. That is what happened to me.

On Tuesday, April 23, the doctors decided that I was well enough to go home the next day. Fantastic! I was elated. On Wednesday April 24, I woke up and realized that elation was the last thing I should feel. The appropriate feeling was panic, and lots of it. That morning, for the first time it really hit me: I, Gila Weiss, had been seriously injured in a suicide bombing. Not somebody else—ME—and I was supposed to deal with it. I had to deal with doctors. I had to deal with National Insurance. I could not even leave my house alone; but I had to figure out how to buy groceries, fill prescriptions and get to and from the hospital. For that matter, groceries, prescriptions and cabs require money, and I could not work. Yet another thing to deal with! I had to do all this half deaf and mostly blind. I had to do all this in Israel and in Hebrew, which were to me still essentially a foreign country and a foreign language, respectively. Worst of all, I had to do all this all alone. My father had left on Monday night.

Clearly, this was impossible. To do this in the United States, in English and in familiar territory, would have been like learning to walk a tightrope. To do this here and under these circumstances was learning to cross a tightrope on a unicycle, backwards and with a wedgie. I absolutely, positively, could not do this. Nononono. I was not going to do this. My body, agreeable as ever despite its injuries, immediately went into full “not-going-to-do-this” mode and shut down. It was as though I had taken four heavy-duty cold tablets. My already limited sight and hearing got even worse, my entire body was tired and ached, and I felt more tired than I had ever felt in my life.

Barbara, my social worker, tried to boost my spirits and confidence while walking me through the steps involved in getting discharged and moving to treatment on an outpatient basis. She sat next to my bed and spoke quietly to me. "Really, you will be fine. It will not be that bad. We will help you." Unfortunately, she did so while rounds were still going on. From across the room, one of the doctors (undoubtedly getting revenge for my incessant questions) turned around and screamed at me. "What is wrong with you? You had had your turn, and now you are disturbing everyone!" That was the last straw. While Barbara went off to give the doctor a piece of her (very pissed-off) mind, I pulled the curtain around my bed, curled up with my teddy bear and burst into tears. Throughout my hospital stay, there had been a certain element of trying to be the perfect patient, the perfect victim of terror (do not ask me why—I am an accountant, not a shrink). And now, on top of everything, I had done something terribly wrong! I was bothering the doctors! Not only was I supposed to do things I clearly could not do, but I was also a selfish, worthless brat. Now the nurses joined my social worker in trying to cheer me up. One by one, they came by my bed and told me not to cry. Zeh beseder-it’s okay. You did not do anything wrong. The doctor was wrong; he should have seen that you were speaking with your social worker. Nothing helped. I felt wretched.

Fortunately for everyone concerned, my friends arrived to save the day. Barbara gave up on trying to tell me what needed to be done and told my friends instead. Debbie dealt with admissions, Valeria packed my bags and Nomi handled everything else. A volunteer from Sela, an organization which aids immigrants in crisis, showed up and made sure I had cash to cover immediate costs. At Nomi's request, the department nurses put together a collection of medical supplies to get me through the first day or two. All the while, I lay in bed, in a daze.

By the early afternoon the discharge work was complete and I was free to go. Debbie and Valeria came back to my room to collect me. They bundled me into a cab and whisked me off to Nomi’s where I was to spend my first couple days of freedom. Once there, I ate something and went right back to sleep. In the evening, friends came to visit. I sat there as though drugged. I could barely hear a word they said; it was as though everything was coming from far away. All the while, my mind was in a state of panic. How could I do this on my own? What was I going to do? My friends were a bit freaked out at my depressed state; up to this point I had presented an unfailingly cheerful countenance. Was this to be the new Gila? They left after a very short visit. I went to bed early.

Sometime in the night, somehow, the fear left me. I work up in the morning and the paralysis was simply gone. From that point on, I managed.