Travels With Yossi--Part One

I haven't been able to update the blog because I've spent the better part of the last week at Hadassah Ein Kerem. The Boy went to the ER by ambulance following the worst seizure he's had in his life. While generally one cannot die from the kinds of seizures he's had, this one included vomiting, and since he fell out of bed and landed on his back, I was afraid he would choke to death....fortunately the Husband is a big guy, and could do what I could not: roll him over on his side and so clear his air passage.

I found out that despite 18 months in Israel, I have yet to master calling the local equivalent of 9-1-1. Besides, when emergencies happen, my Hebrew flees the brain cells.

So I called Yossi. It was seven in the morning, and I knew he'd be up drinking a cup of botz while making breakfast for his kids. I told him, briefly, what was happening and asked him to call the ambulance, knowing he could give the driver directions in Hebrew that I was incapable of giving.

"Sarah, you want me to come?" he offered.

"No, that's all right, you have to get the kids to school, but thanks. I just needed help with the ambulance," I answered.

I went back into the Boy's room and watched things get worse. I yelled for the Husband to come help me turn the Boy so he didn't choke, and while Husband did that, I ran back to the phone.

"Is the ambulance coming?" I asked, a bit more frantic now.

"Yes, but you need to stand outside by the road and wave them into the parking lot," he cautioned. "What's happening?"

I told him.

"I'm coming, Sarah," he stated with the finality that I've only ever heard Yossi summon. A tone of voice that brooks no argument and no quarter.

He arrived right after the ambulance. He drove me to Hadassah Ein Kerem and spent the day in the ER with my son and me. When the staff took the Boy away for a CT scan, Yossi took me to the mall and helped me buy clean sweats and a shirt for the kid, then took me to buy something to eat for him as well.

"Food?" I queried. "Will the hospital allow this?"

I got a sort of smiling grimace and Israeli shrug as if to say, 'and who's going to stop you?'

"Believe me, he'll like this better than anything the hospital gives him," Yossi assured me as we carted a cheese boureka and an iced coffee back to the ER.

Yossi stayed with us until the Boy was finally admitted into the hospital for observation and more tests. I went home to an unprepared Shabbat....only to find out that Yossi's wife had done my Shabbat shopping for me and brought us a bottle of wine, loaves of fresh challah, a coffee cake for breakfast, and made rice as well as a chicken & potato dish for Shabbat dinner. Yossi's mom, a balabusta of the first order, also made moussaka and a variety of salads for Shabbat and then threw in an extra dish of chicken, meatballs and fresh peas so we'd have something to tide us over for a couple of days.......

These are ordinary Israelis who have sick relatives of their own, kids to pick up from school, homework to help with, kid haircuts and shoes to get, deadlines of their own to meet---but because we're 'family' they chipped in without a second thought and made Shabbat (and a little bit extra--we ate Moroccan all week) for us.