Wednesday, October 21, 2009

An Innocent Patient Abroad (Jewish Week)

See TBE's Rhonna Rogol's article in this week's Jewish Week: "An Innocent Abroad," describing her unique experiences on her most recent trip to Israel.

Perhaps it was divine retribution for the blatantly treif lunch I’d enjoyed so much at one of Zichron Yaakov’s new boutique eateries earlier that day.

But somehow, late into the second evening of a long-awaited trip to Israel, I suddenly found myself aw akened in my Tel Aviv hotel room by excruciating abdominal pain. Several hours of doubled-up suffering later, I finally was no longer able to deny the obvious and succumbed to the incredible reality: I, longtime Hadassah devotee and immediate past president of my Stamford, Conn., chapter, was about to visit an Israeli ER that was not run by my beloved Women’s Zionist Organization.

An hour-long ambulance trek to Jerusalem was simply out of the question. Our hotel’s paramedic, advising against what he referred to tongue-in-cheek as Wolf-“sof” (end) hospital, shuttled us off by taxi to the closer Sourasky Medical Center, better known to locals as Ichilov. At a moment so infused with guilt about ruining our plans and fear of being seriously ill so far from home, I could hardly have anticipated that this unplanned, unwanted side tour would end up making my trip.

Rhonna Rogol's article continues here.

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