Short and Sweet

I feel like the blogs I've written recently (and intent to write shortly) are a shade macabre. Here is a happy story, about as long as I can muster right now. Click the pictures to see them larger.

Shadi after 1 heart surgery:

Shadi after 2 heart surgeries:




He still has one more to go in a few years.

Dignity

Mohammed Hamdan died the other day, less than a week after returning to the Gaza strip to be near to his family as he went. The quickness in which his condition deteriorated once at home was much more rapid than we expected. It took several weeks to prepare to take him home. The 28 medications he was on needed to be changed to those available in the Gaza Strip, and he was taken off of the ones with a narcotic effect, and arrangements for direct ambulance transport needed to be arranged. His last day at the hospital was spend making sure all of his meds were in order, saying goodbye to everyone in the hospital, and the most surprising thing: making him human.

The appearance of Mohammed in the ICU has been that of a corpse, blue and nearly bloated beyond recognition. The ICU patients lay there nearly naked like cadavers, with various parts missing and instruments plugged into them; a cable from the skull, amputations and black extremities, IV holes and chest wounds which do not heal. So gruesome that when they look up at you or cry for their mother you are startled that what is before you really is alive, it’s not some sick plastic doll or horror movie prop.

But, because he was not on certain drugs the day he left, he looked like a little boy. His mother bought him a new set of clothes for the journey back home. It was not until after I had dressed him that I realized that in the 5 months he has been here I had not once seen him wearing clothes. There, seated before me, was a human being. It was surprising to me how much a little normalcy and dignity go in making the weak and helpless endlessly more human.


I have often felt guilty for giving up hope on Mohammed Hamdan, so much effort is put into sustaining him and there was so little chance that he would survive, and I found myself put to shame by most of the doctors who faithfully assessed him every day and treated him like any other patient. I would always pray for him, for his mother, and the situation surrounding them but I always struggled to get specific. I still do not know if it is right to pray that a child might die in this circumstance, that their suffering would end, that it would just be finished. To think of him as the moving cadaver in the ICU or the little boy dressed his finest to go home adds much to the question.

Schnitzel Baguette and a Liter of Coca-Cola

It was a few days ago now during my rush to get things done in the hospital that Mohammed Hamdan’s mother approached me at around 2 o’clock (we refer to the mothers of patients as Im (Arabic) or Um (Kurdish) followed by their child’s name). Im Mohammed has been in the hospital now with her son for about 5 months, so we have gotten to know each other fairly well. She has also apparently gotten used to the often frantic nature of my routine and recognized that if I was still running around at 2 o’clock that I probably hadn’t eaten. When I finally got a chance to sit down, she walked into the room with a foot long schnitzel baguette and a liter bottle of Coca-Cola from the hospital mall, just for me. This was an incredible gesture, most people in Gaza live in poverty and here she had spent close to $10 US on me for lunch. This was one of the most powerful gestures anyone has done for me since I’ve been here. Afterward I found out that one of our Iraqi patients of about 9-years-old, who I was helping in the hospital that day, didn't understand and confronted her about why she would buy food for me, she responded by scolding him saying "because he is a good man!"

The doctor’s have exhausted all options to save Mohammed. After his first heart surgery he needed to get strong enough to undergo a second surgery, and he simply has not gotten any stronger. The doctors have just been waiting for him to become stable in his present condition to be transferred to a hospital in Gaza where, in all likelihood, he will not live long. Mohammed and his mother will likely travel either Sunday or Monday back to Gaza, please keep them in your prayers.

Sometimes our Gaza families get left out of some opportunities we have to minister to and connect with our patients because they are not legally allowed to leave the hospital grounds, while our Iraqi families actually live in the same building with us. So a couple days before I left for Jordan, when the rest of the staff were starting a picnic with the Iraqis on the hospital lawn, I ran through the hospital ward collecting the Palestinian mothers and their kids to join us. They were very grateful to be included, and once again made a bit of a scene having an entourage of half a dozen Palestinian women following behind me as I showed them the way.

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.

Joy and Love Despite Every Obstacle

Today I drove a young lad named Mohammed back to Gaza, I had driven him out a few days ago and I knew then that I would be able to reach out to him in more ways than driving him back and forth. Like any young boy about 8 or 9 he was nervous meeting Simantov (another volunteer) and I at the border, and probably due to the austerity of his father, had to hold back a guarded sense of excitement about seeing new places. It was clear the mannerly father felt his son should be less energetic and excited (must be his first son). I shook the fathers hand and then extended it to Mohammed, and he smiled and shook it as well. When I saw his bright smile with big front teeth I was reminded of my little brother Jamie back at home who is about the same age and has the same kind of excitement when I come around. Once he got the clear impression from us that it was okay to be excited, just about everything was a thrill for him; from shaking his hand, to letting him load some bags, the rides through Israel, letting him close the trunk with all his might, sharing my Pringles with him, to the last high five I gave him before he went back to Gaza. It's inspiring to me to see such vibrant joy bursting through during such hostile times, especially in contrast to his father who in the face of this very thing seems to have been rubbed raw, hardened, and inevitably calloused. He only remained in the hospital for a few days because he had come in for a heart catheterization, his open-heart surgery is scheduled for the end of April and I’m really excited to see him again. Even though we only have the Gaza patients with us for a much shorter time than the Iraqi’s, I have a wonderful feeling that, perhaps despite his father’s efforts, he will go home to Gaza with a positive impression of me and my fellow workers that will last him his a lifetime, and render his experience here incompatible with any he might encounter in Gaza that would breed hatred or violence.