A Day in the Life

I haven’t had time to update the blog in a while, given how busy I am I hope that you understand. Here is a snapshot of today:

Today after the 8:30 morning meeting I drove from Jerusalem to Gaza with Erica our Gaza coordinator to pick up several patients for the first time in about two weeks. The border had been closed to medical cases because of a bureaucratic stand-off, the details of which are hardly entertaining blog content. Out of a possible 7 children I was told that 5 had obtained all the necessary permissions, 1 to be taken by ambulance, and 4 to be picked up by yours truly; 2 for follow ups, 1 for heart catheterization, and 1 for urgent surgery. I was also told that some Israeli medical students would be meeting me at the border to tag along in order to make the entire process somehow more complicated. Because the border requires all people going through the border to shut off their cell phones, and because of the hoops everyone must jump through to get out, discerning when and if anyone gets across it is extremely unpredictable. After waiting approximately half an hour we had collected 3 of the 4 patients, but the one left in security was the most urgent case. In order to ensure that the 3 kids that made it out were able to be treated I left for Tel Aviv with just 3 of the 4 children expected to get out, and gave Erica’s cell phone number to one of the taxi drivers who sit at the border in case the 4^th child made it out. I squeezed two of the medical students in the van as well and they provided some welcome company on the road to the hospital. They were both fresh from American and Canada and were very interested to hear about our work. They have been living in Be’er Sheba, one of the primary targets of the Hamas rockets, and frankly I was surprised at the lack of bitterness toward the Gazan people. I thought it was perhaps because they had not lived there long, but they have lived there long enough to suffer a bit of shell shock after this latest war, and joked about how they jump at anything that sounds similar to the incoming rocket warning siren.

For some reason Israelis have become nervous about people from Gaza, possibly because of the daily rockets and bombings, so it’s routine that whenever I pull up in the van to hospital entry security with Gazans security likes to run our papers, check the bags, look at the van, check for nervous eyes, etc. All the guards recognize me at this point and I‘m able to joke with them about giving me a hard time every time I bring anyone to the hospital, a smile goes a long way, and seeing men armed with fully automatic assault rifles is something you get used to; I think it’s possible them knowing I'm from California has granted me a charisma they’re curious about as well. After everything cleared and the guard handed me back all the paperwork I said “thanks” and as I pulled away hung my arm out the window and held out a peace sign, the guard instinctively called back “peace!” as I drove into the lot.

Upon piling out of the elevator at the hospital with all the Gazan’s I was stopped at the entry to the pediatric cardiology department by one of the workers, very unusual… I didn’t find out why until about 15 minutes later, after watching a few people rush in and out. Yesterday, amongst the chaos of my own tasks at the hospital, I witnessed Maureen a 3-year-old from Tanzania having her chest sutures removed (one of the final things done before a patient’s release). I said a quick hello to her mother Sweetie, before I ran off to finish my work for the day. I have had several conversations with Sweetie in the hospital rooms, hallways and outside the ICU, and I’ve always been sure to say hello to bashful little Maureen. Sweetie has been here with her daughter, who has had 3 heart surgeries now, since December through Save a Child’s Heart. I found out that she was a Christian, and gave her my Gideon’s New Testament so she would be have the Scriptures handy in a pocket size to carry with her, and I was able to connect her with a local Christian congregation in Tel Aviv so that she was able to attend a much needed worship service. Today was a different story for Maureen, in the morning she had a temperature so as a precaution she was brought to the hospital to have some tests run. Suddenly, in the middle of being checked Maureen’s breathing and heart stopped. The technician immediately called (not exaggerating) the entire children’s ward staff and doctors and every machine they had to the small check-up room. This was why I was stopped at the entrance to the department, the workers didn’t want the 6 Gazans I had in tow to witness this frenzy going on around the corner. When I got the all clear I brought the Gazan patients into a waiting area and watched machine after machine being wheeled out of the check-up room, followed by Maureen. With 20 or so of the best pediatric doctors and nurses in the world surrounding her she was successfully resuscitated after a few minutes, and as she was wheeled by I was never happier to hear a child cry. It’s unknown whether or not she has suffered brain damage, I’ll get an update the next time I go to this hospital.

After making sure the nurses were ready for the kids and waiting for the panic to settle down it was well past lunch time but after a minute of debating whether or not to get food or wait longer with the patients we received a call from the taxi driver that the 4^th child had made it across, and back we went to Gaza. Thankfully this took place without incident, we picked up the mother and child, welcomed them, strapped them in, and back we went again to Tel Aviv.

Back at the hospital now two of the three patients brought earlier had finished their check-ups and the third was being worked on, which gave us thirty minutes or so to eat lunch. Now 3:30, I was ready to stuff my face with something huge in a hurry, McDonald’s fit the bill. I order a small combo to the tune of 42 sheqels (a little more than 10 US dollars (no that’s not a typo)). After shoving the food down we returned to collect the two families that came for follow up in order to take them home to Gaza only to find the hallway empty. Not knowing where Gazan’s are in a city like Tel Aviv was a big security booboo, but we quickly tracked them down quickly, and I joked with the doctor about her losing my patients. We found them, called out “Yalla” (the Arabic catch all for, “let’s go,” “come here,” “are you ready,” etc), had a bit of a laugh about them eluding us, and piled back into the van.

The sun was setting as I drove in the middle of the Israeli rush hour, now the third time to Gaza today. It’s no surprise that the traffic thins the closer you get to the border, though even the bumper to bumper tedium isn’t so bad if you can just enjoy the beautiful countryside along the way, especially at sunset when the rolling hills turn golden on one side of the highway, and dunes with desert blooms chasing the sun on the other. We made it to the border once again, unloaded our happy little patients and their mothers, shook their hands and made sure they got through the security gate. Our day was finally done and we were prepared to head to Jerusalem when, wouldn’t you know it, I got a knock on my driver’s window…

I let Erica do the talking (she’s fluent in Arabic). This fellow had gotten out of Gaza and was looking for a ride to Jerusalem. While hitchhikers are very common in Israel, Gazan’s getting permission to go to Jerusalem are not at all. We asked him what he was doing, to which he replied he was going for peace talks. Erica and I were very skeptical of the possibility and needed to check him out before unintentionally aiding an international criminal, but sure enough, he produced the paperwork. He was granted a travel visa to be in Israel for more than a month, and was permitted to travel almost everywhere in Israel; both the length of time and the areas he had permission to were shocking to me frankly. He gave us a business card which titles him a Political Commissar under the Palestinian National Authority – The Chairman of Supreme Committee for Negotiation and Peace Process Suppert (sic).

Call me superstitious if you like, but it’s not every day that The Chairman of the Supreme Committee for Negotiation and Peace Process Support of the Palestinian Authority ask for a ride from a random van that so happens to be occupied by two people at the bleeding edge of this work, who also happen to be going exactly where he needs to go, and from the Gaza border no less. So, after being scolded by a frustrated taxi driver for stealing his customer we headed back for Jerusalem.

I stopped to load myself up on some coffee for another long drive at a restaurant and coffee shop about 5 minutes from the border. There are two spins for how you can be surprised at this place, either that such a nice place could exist in such close proximity to the Gaza strip granted the constantly falling rockets, or that such a ravaged place as the Gaza strip could exist in such close proximity to a fine dining restaurant. For the price of a McDonalds meal you can get essentially a 3 course meal, I seriously hope no one in Hamas hears about this place, not that I wouldn’t like them to enjoy it, but because they’d probably want to blow it up. This place is one that gives me that unexpectedly normal feeling, it shouldn’t feel normal there, but it does. You never know what will give you some perspective in this place, in this case it was a restaurant.

We made it back to Jerusalem around 7:30, dropped off our new friend, ate some dinner which was waiting for us, and got to work on things needed to get done around Jerusalem. I imagine we’ll try to make contact with the political commissar sometime during his stay, perhaps have him over for dinner. We can always use more friends on both sides.