Cancer Does Not Discriminate
This piece below was written in honor of the launch of The Universal Language by Nicky Gluch.
An eight year old Jewish, Israeli boy from Jerusalem lay in the neurosurgery ward in Tel Aviv, awake but unable to move or speak. He was just moaning and moaning. Standing next to his bed, with her arms stretched up to the heavens praying for the God above to help this child – was an Arab grandmother from Gaza who’s own granddaughter lay in the bed next to his. The common language of the two families went beyond the spoken word. It always does when you are dealing with sick children.
The Jewish child in this case, was my son, diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor called medulloblastoma in January 2017. The result of his operation to remove his brain tumor was something called Posterior Fossa Syndrome, where essentially the brain forgets how to do everything. He was unable to move, speak, lift a finger, walk or even swallow water.
If there is one thing you learn when you spend any extended period of time in an Israeli hospital, it is that everything stands still. You don’t know what day of the week it is and you forget that life actually exists on the outside. Our story is only one of thousands of patients who pass through the Israeli medical system, the surgery wards, the pediatric oncology wards, the rehab centers, the therapy clinics…
It was not uncommon for us to have roommates who would set their alarm for 4am to pray. Or for the rehab hospital where we stayed for months on end to organize a feast for the month of Ramadan each night for those fasting during the day.
I became friends with a Muslim mother of a son who had brain surgery also, and who’s other son had previously suffered from leukemia. She lived in the north of the country, and when she would go back home for a break, she’d always bring me a bunch of fruit from the harvest of her family’s farm. She would invite me to join her and her other Muslim friends to have their afternoon tea. We were all mothers, whose children were long term in-patients in the best rehabilitation hospital in Israel, and we were just trying to make it through each and every difficult day.
There was another mother, who shared a room with us for a while, who would go back home for a few hours in the day to remove her burka. She didn’t live too far from the hospital, so it was possible. As an observant Jewish female who also covers my hair, she knew I understood when she complained of the need to “let her hair out” as her own head covering gave her constant headaches. And even now, when I bump into her at the outpatient clinic at the rehab we still give each other a big hug as is common of long lost friends.
Hospitals somehow are places that bring out the best in people, where mutual respect and empathy go a long way. This is experienced in all facets of the institutions, from the teachers, nurses, doctors and therapists who speak both arabic and hebrew, to the signs on the doorposts and walls wishing patients and their families, a Merry Christmas, Happy Channukah or an easy Ramadan.
Because at the end of the day, what each and every parent and care provider understands very quickly when they enter a pediatric oncology ward, or any ward where they are fighting for their kids’ life, is that we, as mortal humans are not in control.
As the Jewish Ultra Orthodox man, a father of a kid suffering from cancer for the second time, told me, “You just have to have faith and pray”. This was the EXACT same thing, on the exact same day that the Arab father from Gaza sharing the room with us, who’s daughter was so ill from the chemotherapy said, “You just have to pray to Allah”.
My son today is walking – without a walker. He still needs a wheelchair for long distances, and we still go to therapies and follow ups 2.5 years later. But this was not a given for us. Today he is at school, back with his friends, able to learn concepts, plays video games like a normal kid and even manages to play football.
One thing I have learned though through all of this, as an ex-South African who grew up in Apartheid, who witnessed the horrible “pass laws” and the separate buses, benches and everything, and who also lived through the second Intifada in Israel where I lost a friend in a terrorist attack by a radical Muslim. Israel’s medical institutions are truly remarkable, where day and night are perhaps the same, just as are Muslims, Jews, Christians and every people of color. We are all the same, we cry, we pray, we help each other, and we embrace. These hospitals are the places where enemies become friends, fighting a war that no parent wants to be part of, forcing you to look beyond your differences.
