The Power of Positive Hamstering

April 27, 2006 by · Leave a Comment
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It was the seventh week of Merav’s latest illness. Sharp and constant pains still pierced her abdomen. She felt dizzy and weak, no doubt in part a result of self-imposed starvation as the very thought of food in her current condition nauseated her. Her head pounded and her joints ached.

As we headed to the Family Medical Center after a night where she (and we, her parents) slept only a few brief hours, I felt sure her doctor would order her immediate hospitalization, if nothing else than to pump her up with nutrients so she wouldn’t waste away. We were, suffice it to say, in quite a panic.

But Dr. N didn’t send us packing for Hadassah. Instead, he carefully read through the summaries written by the specialists and technicians who had conducted various rounds of tests on Merav over the course of the last two months. He then read us the results, confirming what we already knew.

Her colonoscopy was clear, he said, So were the results from her “Upper GI” (a test that involves swallowing radioactive barium and then x-raying the liquid as it makes its way downward). Her blood results – completely normal too.

He then turned to my twelve-year-old daughter. “Merav,” he said, “I can find no sign of disease. Nothing acute or life threatening. It’s time you start to see yourself as a healthy girl again. You need to get back into a normal routine and life.”

That should have been the best news of the day. Yet I must have looked horrified. That was it? After everything she’d been through, after all the poking and prodding, the drinking of foul fluids and being told there was nothing we could do but wait patiently for another round of tests while Merav writhed in pain, her knees held tight against her chest begging me nightly “Abba, make the pain go away.” That’s the end of it – you’re fine, now get on with your life?

Perhaps sensing my confusion, Dr. N wisely chose…to avoid me completely. “Do you think you can do that, think of yourself as healthy?” he continued, looking straight at Merav.

Merav shook her head. “I don’t know. It hurts too much.”

I finally found my voice. “Are you saying…” I said to Dr. N, “that this has all be in Merav’s head? That the whole illness was – no…is – something psychosomatic?”

Of course that wasn’t what he was saying at all. He proffered his best guess: Merav was suffering from something called “IBS” – short for “irritable bowel syndrome.” It’s diagnosed primarily through process of elimination. There are no physical signs of disease in the body, but the symptoms are very real. Merav certainly didn’t bring this on herself, Dr. N assured us. And it was probably totally unconnected to her illness the previous year.

Then, perhaps to make me feel better, he prescribed a cocktail of anti-spasmodics, pain killers and paraffin oil.

Now, Dr. N is not normally from the school of “tough love” medicine. So, as he nearly threw us out of his office, I wondered if maybe there was some method to this seeming madness.

I decided to play along. Despite my frustration, I would try to see Merav as healthy again. I’ve never been a big believer in the whole “power of positive thinking” thing, but it was worth a try.

No more doctors. No searching for the top pediatric rheumatologist in town. No pushing to schedule an appointment with the head of infectious diseases at the children’s hospital in Ramat Gan. We’d change our attitude. The seed had been planted. Time to let it grow, if only a little.

And so the next morning, I said to Merav “Would you like to come out to brunch with me and get some ice coffee?”

Merav was initially reluctant, citing the usual aches and pains, but the idea grew on her. And before long we were walking to the Café Hillel on Emek Refaim Street where Merav ordered her favorite beverage, I got a chai masala with soy milk (my favorite beverage), and we shared a chocolate croissant.

“Can I have milk in my coffee?” she asked tentatively as we were ordering. What would normally have been a standard question had a meaning all of it own. For on top of everything else, during this period of illness we had taken Merav to a Chinese herbalist who put her on a highly restrictive diet that included no dairy products or white flour.

The diet had inadvertently contributed to her predicament: with most foods making her nauseous, the only ones she actually wanted were forbidden. She had been subsisting on two pieces of toast and jam a day for weeks, hardly enough calories for a growing girl.

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m pronouncing this diet null and void,” I said. “Didn’t the doctor say you had to go back to your ‘regular’ life?”

Merav’s mood began to brighten.

As we were sipping our drinks and soaking in the buzz of a Friday morning in Jerusalem when the cafes are all packed and the streets flow like the proverbial milk and honey with friends and acquaintances from the neighborhood, my cell phone rang. It was our good friend Ruth who had taken a keen interest in Merav; the two had been close since her previous illness the year before.

Ruth said she wanted to buy Merav a “small animal.” She had been struck by a hunch that Merav might find it beneficial to take care of another living creature. I gave the phone over to Merav.

Merav nearly jumped out of her seat. She launched into a stream of consciousness chatter that was downright invigorating. It had been a long time since so much energy had come out of our little girl’s body.

Ruth picked Merav up and they headed for the pet store where they lovingly held and evaluated all seven hamsters available before settling on a cute little critter that Merav named “Mazie” after the imagined talking dog in the Judy Blume book “Just As Long as We’re Together.”

The pet store put together a spacious cage at Ruth’s request with a running wheel, various colorful crawling tubes and a little house. Merav held and watched and generally stayed transfixed on Mazie the rest of the day…and the next day…and pretty much the day after too.

Her pain passed and she’s been 100% better ever since.

While they were out shopping, Ruth told us later that Merav had commented that she gets “very attached to things” and that sometimes she finds it “hard to let go.” Could she have gotten attached to the concept of being ill?

I don’t believe that this was all in her head. Neither does Dr. N, I’m sure. But what he understood – apparently before any of us – was that holding on to a concept of being “sick” can impede a healthy recovery just as cruelly as a purely physical condition. His admonition to “get back into life” spurred all of us into action.

Can one’s thoughts really affect health in such a profound and real way? In our case, there seems to be no doubt. I like to call it “the power of positive hamstering.”

———————–
This article was cross posted at This Normal Life, which is hosted by Bloggerce, a new publishing service started by the author.

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Shedding my American skin

April 27, 2006 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General 

The other day, as I stood outside my newly acquired Jerusalem apartment, trying to figure out exactly how one opens the door, another resident of the building began walking up the stairs.

Now I’m Ohio born and bred, but in my heart I genuinely believe that I was meant to be a city girl. New York or Montreal, I don’t care, but I’m quite certain that the stork got confused. Somewhere out there, some poor soul is probably wandering the streets of Manhattan, cursing her lack of proximity to cow culture. To her I send my regrets.

But anyway, I’m struggling with the door, and unidentified potential neighbor is quickly approaching. So as grew to be my custom in Montreal, I begin my, “someone is approaching, I must pretend that I am not ignoring them as I ignore them routine”. For those of you unfamiliar with this routine, it goes as follows: you simply hunch your shoulders a bit, lean down ever so slightly, and focus very intently on the lock. It is essential that you show no outward signs that you have noticed anyone approach – that would be rude. Then, as you push open the door, you walk past it while pulling the key out of the door, and reach behind you, your back still to the hallway, and push the door closed. Meanwhile, new entrant to the building walks passed you, engrossed in newly acquired flyer, lint on sweater, etc., so that they too can pretend that they don’t see you. Like a well choreographed dance – both polite and convenient.

But as it was my first day in the new apartment, I hadn’t quite mastered the finer art of the stealthy key in door routine, and thus continued to stand there and fumble with my lock, trying to look as engaged as one could possibly be with two interlocking pieces of metal.

“Shalom?”

Someone had spoken. I was taken aback, shocked even. My dance partner du moment was stepping all over my ballet slippers. I looked up.

A string of Hebrew words ensued, spoken so quickly that I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t have understood them had they been in English. I opened my mouth to speak, but didn’t know where to begin.

“Ohh, English, right. Here, hold this.”

I put my hand out to receive the Israeli girl’s cigarette as she juggled her bags, unlocked the door and ushered me inside. Before I really knew what had happened, I had received the official apartment tour and was sitting on her couch with a hot mug of tea in my hand.

As we became lost in conversation about our lives, our travels, our educations, our futures, I couldn’t help but sit back and smile. As Americans we spend our entire lives trying to be polite, while simultaneously avoiding any real contact with any unnecessary human being. We can go through entire days smiling, waving and nodding at exactly the right moments, without actually engaging in any meaningful conversation. Yet here I was, sitting on some strangers couch, sharing my personal thoughts on nearly everything.

I didn’t even notice that I was ignoring my ringing cell phone – a definite faux pas by American standards – as she regaled me with stories of the army, her travels in South America, and her opinion on most American girls. We didn’t stop talking until she realized that she was supposed to meet a friend twenty minutes prior, yet another situation that would have sent me into a frenzy. As she walked me out she reminded me to come by anytime and to always ask if I needed something. “Remember, we Israelis pretend we’re tough, and we’re certainly not polite, but you’ll never meet anyone nicer.”

As I wandered down the stairs to my apartment and leisurely unlocked my door, I realized that she’s right. I have been perpetually overwhelmed by pushy shop keepers, bus drivers yelling at me because I missed my stop, and pharmacists screaming out symptoms of my latest illness, mainly because they want to make sure that I understand that they are paying attention to me. And though that is something that I am usually not comfortable with, after eight months, it’s starting to seem kind of nice.

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My Madonna is too tight

April 27, 2006 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General 

While Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes gave a nod to the Hebrew language by naming their daughter Suri, Israelis are very generous in sprinkling English words in every facet of their speech.

But I had never heard this English/Hebrew word before.
My 17-year-old daughter is leaving today for San Diego to peform with her high school singing troupe for Israel Independence Day celebrations there (I had to get that in as a proud abba).

The 12-member group had a dress rehearsal a couple nights ago for the families and friends, (they were amazing, of course).

Afterwards, milling around, some of the kids were rehashing the performance, and talking about a couple sound malfunctions related to their microphones – those space-age wireless kind that are hooked on the ear, and arc around to the mouth.

One singer said to another, “… And my Madonna was too tight, how was yours?”

“What?” I intervened. “What did you just call that?”

“It’s a Madonna,” the bemused teen responded. “That’s the name of these microphones!”

Then I realized that the Material Girl was probably one of the first entertainers to tour extensively with the mic/mouthpiece. And our enterprising Israeli youth just decided to name the devices after her.

So, if every teen in the US is already calling ear microphones ‘Madonna’, then I’ve made a terrible mistake, and excuse me.

But in six months, if every teen in the US is calling them ‘Madonnas’, then you’ll know it’s an Israeli import.

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When You Grow Up

April 26, 2006 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Israeliness 

Havazelet HaSharon writes on her Hebrew language blog about the memorial siren heard across the country during which all Israelis observe a minute of silence to remember the victims of the Holocaust:

My six year old son, who is in first grade, had a rough time during the siren. That’s what he told me when I came home yesterday. “I couldn’t stop laughing. I was all because of Amir. He made funny faces at me all the time. And kept asking me when the siren’s going to end and I couldn’t hold up the laughing”.

I suggested that next time he should think about something sad. He should think of how sad is this day, Holocaust Memorial Day, and then he’ll be able to hold up.

“I don’t really understand what the Holocaust is”, my kid answers me. “They didn’t teach us about it in kindergarten. Would you like to explain me, so next time I won’t laugh?”

I allow him to see scary movies. Movies with monsters, battles and blood. He swallows the pictures on screen, while his sister covers her face. People die in his movies, sometimes it’s the bad guys, sometimes the good ones and he sees the grief of their families and friends, the pain, the sobbing. Sometimes its cartoons, sometimes it isn’t but always he knows and understands that its not real. In his real world there’s only joy. He doesn’t know that those troublesome moments in the movies can also exist in real life. He doesn’t know that there are even more terrifying things than those he sees on screen.

“Next year”, I tell him. “Next year”. He deserves another year of childhood.

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Tel Aviv vs. Beersheva

April 23, 2006 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General 

Yael, a recent immigrant to Tel Aviv wonders if she’s pioneering enough….

As I walked along the very pretty and new covered walkway and bridge from the new train station in Beersheva to the university while listening to the music they were piping through the speakers mounted every 20 feet or so along its length –I could live here. Look, they are building all kinds of things here and working hard to make this city a real place of culture (or at least comfort) and so forth. See how nice they’ve made this…

Reality sunk in and I quickly corrected myself to “I should live here.” In other words, I had (and on-going) a bit of a zionistic mini-crisis. Living in Tel Aviv is hella fun. There’s life and cafes and and friends and things going on constantly so that even if all you are doing is walking down the street or sitting in your apartment you feel like you are in the thick of things. It is a lot like what I love about New York. But better, because there is the beach. Oy, the beach. The weather is also not bad. In short, I love living in Tel Aviv.

But, would I not be more useful and more something or other if I were living in the Negev? Ok so the hip and happening live in Tel Aviv (not that I am claiming to be one of those, just that I benefit from being among them) because it is hip and happening and they don’t live in Beer Sheva …because it is not. But, I said to myself as I waltzed along the covered walkway, if I and other hip and happening people got up and moved to Beer Sheva wouldn’t it become, well, more hip and happening? Doesn’t someone need to lead the way? Is it not, as part of my patriotic duty as a socialist and a zionist, really necessary that I suffer plant my body and soul where it is most needed to help build this country?

Then, I stepped off the covered walkway into the uncovered sun and…melted. The heat was unbelievable. It is April. We are talking there was no spring we went straight from winter and cold and yucky to frying eggs on the pavement. I was wearing a light longsleeve sweater and carrying a light jacket with me because it was cold in Tel Aviv this morning when I left. It was not cold in Beer Sheva. Nope, not a bit of it. Those little daydreams of working to build up the Negev kinda melted right along with the rest of me. I dunno, I’m still thinking about it but I have the strong, sadly, impression that I am too darn selfish to be a truly good Zionist.

Crossposted on Oleh Girl

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