Once I'd leapt through all the bureaucratic hoops to get a slot, and sat shivering on my own for three hours staring at the sesame seeds in my Stars of David gown, I was admitted to a little room of my own to wait for my slot in the operating theatre to come up.
Having lost my nerve with all the (m)administration, I googled the name of the doctor in charge of my operation, to see what her track record was. At least, I thought to myself, if I were to find some hiccup in her surgical history at that point - it wasn't too late to pull the rip chord and make a run for it in my Stars of David gown to come up with another plan.
The first entry I found revealed only a personal tragedy. In 2002, during the 2nd Intifada, my Jewish doctor's 18-year-old son was killed in a terror attack at his military training academy.
At the time she said to a newspaper:
As an outsider, this treacherous ocean of tragedies throws you from one side of the ship to another, with never a moment's warning.
I wondered if her thoughts had changed, over the 12 years since her son's death. Then my telephone rang, and it was her friendly, business-like voice telling me she would meet me in the operating theatre in about an hour's time, and was everything okay and how was I feeling and was my husband with me? She recommended J be around for when I came around from the anaesthetic, so I called him to ask him to come back, and within half an hour I was being helped onto one of those trolleys and wheeled what felt like 20 miles to the operating theatres.
It's hard to know what to do on the trolley as you glide past other patients and hospital staff. I wondered if I should smile at people or look like I was ill - even though I wasn't. Though there's nothing like being wheeled around in a hospital to make you feel like you are ill. Instead I concentrated on the ceiling lighting systems and lower parts of the wall than I'd normally have eye contact with - and almost wished I had my camera with me. There would have been some crazy angles available.
I'm not sure if it was the super-strength anti-biotic I'd been given, or just the strangeness of the situation, but I had one of the Lozenge's school songs running over and over in my head: 'Hey ho, away we go, donkey riding, donkey riding' as the Eritrean nurse struggled to keep the trolley straight. It was one of those with dicey wheels like a dodgy supermarket trolley, and it kept veering towards the wall.
A couple of days in the hospital on my own had felt a bit like donkey riding, I thought, when really I wished I was on a prancing Arab steed, getting on with my life and starting work. For the whole summer I'd been mulling over a job offer to make 9 short films about the state of education with 9 children across 9 Arab countries: Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Iraq, Yemen and Djibouti with a deadline of November/December. And I couldn't decide what to do. The region is on fire and education is one of the main routes out of the flames for people here. It was something I truly wanted to do, and fully believed in.
But the costs to us as a family; the travel and being away a lot; the personal risks in what was likely to be a shambolic organisational backdrop in each place; the rigmarole of visas to 9 places with no support and getting myself and my camera kit into each place without being held up by airport officials asking what my purpose was; and many, many other questions were stacking up in my conscience. Plus I already have quite a bit of work on here in Jerusalem and the situation in Gaza is not going away.
J listened to my reasoning for 3 months. As usual, mostly listening, and asking a carefully phrased question from time to time. But he let me get on with my own thinking.
And after a couple of days on my own in the hospital with no dwarf decibels, just Gertrude Bell for company, I had time to think. I remembered one of J's and my conversations about our roles as humans changing since we'd been living with dwarves. J explained he'd never felt more of an obligation to provide. And I reflected that there was no one in the world that could be the dwarves' Mother better me (even on a really bad day...). And the mere thought of someone else trying it on my behalf - even my most trusted friend or sister or mother - was not an option. Unless, of course I were no longer around to do it myself. Herewith the nub of the issue. This is not the time in history to get caught out in Yemen or Iraq.
So during my couple of lonely hospital days I'd come to the conclusion that this job could be someone else's this year. And I decided to stick to the job that no one else can do for me.
It's strange how, the baby-that-was-not-to-be, ended up creating for me, the space required in my body and mind to let the truth bubble to the surface. And those couple of days of donkey riding had enabled me to slow down enough to notice that truth as we hobbled along.
I called J to tell him, and he admitted it was the first time in our 10 years together that he'd had serious concerns about one of my jobs. Though J being J, had never stood in my way, and let me come to the decision myself. Agonising as it was.
So the guy pushing my trolley was Eritrean, the nurse that took my blood pressure was Polish, the assistant that plugged in the IV was Russian, the anaesthetist was American, and the doctor herself French. But they were all speaking Hebrew to each other.
They all asked if I was okay, and the French doctor stroked my arm and said everything was going to be fine. I thought as I looked at her sympathetic face, that I must be only a few years older than her son would have been had he lived.
The aneasthetist put the mask over my face - they all waved and smiled and said 'Good night' in English.
And that was the last thing I remembered until I opened my eyes to see an old man beside me with a long grey beard, his Jewish 'kippa' still on his head with a matching Stars of David gown to me, being watched over by his orthodox wife in her brown bobbed wig, holding his hand as he too came around from his operation. There were quite a few of us lined up in the room on our trolleys and I was probably the youngest by a few decades. I felt grateful to be awake and for it all to be over.
Poor J, at this stage, was lost in the hospital corridors having as many problems with the Hebrew-speaking hospital staff. An American-sounding nurse came to our rescue and tried to call him a few times. 'Oh dear' she said, 'He's really lost and he sounds kinda annoyed. He probably feels bad he's not with you. Don't worry - he'll find you soon I'm sure.'
After about 15 minutes J appeared bearing newspapers and bag of fruit. I was so happy to see him. Everything was suddenly all right just having him there.
We spent the rest of the afternoon together in the recovery room reading newspapers and mulling over life - which though the circumstances were strange and not exactly positive - felt like a tiny island away from all things dwarf, and our not uncomplicated working scenarios
And a little space for a rest, courtesy of our non baby.
Having lost my nerve with all the (m)administration, I googled the name of the doctor in charge of my operation, to see what her track record was. At least, I thought to myself, if I were to find some hiccup in her surgical history at that point - it wasn't too late to pull the rip chord and make a run for it in my Stars of David gown to come up with another plan.
The first entry I found revealed only a personal tragedy. In 2002, during the 2nd Intifada, my Jewish doctor's 18-year-old son was killed in a terror attack at his military training academy.
At the time she said to a newspaper:
"It is an untenable situation that I, a doctor at Hadassah hospital, am walking around with my head in the ground while Arab cleaning employees walk around with their heads held high. That is not why I moved to Israel with my family from [Europe]. I have no problem with Arabs living here, but this is the state of the Jews, and we must do whatever it takes to send this message out and fill it with meaning."
As an outsider, this treacherous ocean of tragedies throws you from one side of the ship to another, with never a moment's warning.
I wondered if her thoughts had changed, over the 12 years since her son's death. Then my telephone rang, and it was her friendly, business-like voice telling me she would meet me in the operating theatre in about an hour's time, and was everything okay and how was I feeling and was my husband with me? She recommended J be around for when I came around from the anaesthetic, so I called him to ask him to come back, and within half an hour I was being helped onto one of those trolleys and wheeled what felt like 20 miles to the operating theatres.
It's hard to know what to do on the trolley as you glide past other patients and hospital staff. I wondered if I should smile at people or look like I was ill - even though I wasn't. Though there's nothing like being wheeled around in a hospital to make you feel like you are ill. Instead I concentrated on the ceiling lighting systems and lower parts of the wall than I'd normally have eye contact with - and almost wished I had my camera with me. There would have been some crazy angles available.
I'm not sure if it was the super-strength anti-biotic I'd been given, or just the strangeness of the situation, but I had one of the Lozenge's school songs running over and over in my head: 'Hey ho, away we go, donkey riding, donkey riding' as the Eritrean nurse struggled to keep the trolley straight. It was one of those with dicey wheels like a dodgy supermarket trolley, and it kept veering towards the wall.
A couple of days in the hospital on my own had felt a bit like donkey riding, I thought, when really I wished I was on a prancing Arab steed, getting on with my life and starting work. For the whole summer I'd been mulling over a job offer to make 9 short films about the state of education with 9 children across 9 Arab countries: Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Iraq, Yemen and Djibouti with a deadline of November/December. And I couldn't decide what to do. The region is on fire and education is one of the main routes out of the flames for people here. It was something I truly wanted to do, and fully believed in.
But the costs to us as a family; the travel and being away a lot; the personal risks in what was likely to be a shambolic organisational backdrop in each place; the rigmarole of visas to 9 places with no support and getting myself and my camera kit into each place without being held up by airport officials asking what my purpose was; and many, many other questions were stacking up in my conscience. Plus I already have quite a bit of work on here in Jerusalem and the situation in Gaza is not going away.
J listened to my reasoning for 3 months. As usual, mostly listening, and asking a carefully phrased question from time to time. But he let me get on with my own thinking.
And after a couple of days on my own in the hospital with no dwarf decibels, just Gertrude Bell for company, I had time to think. I remembered one of J's and my conversations about our roles as humans changing since we'd been living with dwarves. J explained he'd never felt more of an obligation to provide. And I reflected that there was no one in the world that could be the dwarves' Mother better me (even on a really bad day...). And the mere thought of someone else trying it on my behalf - even my most trusted friend or sister or mother - was not an option. Unless, of course I were no longer around to do it myself. Herewith the nub of the issue. This is not the time in history to get caught out in Yemen or Iraq.
So during my couple of lonely hospital days I'd come to the conclusion that this job could be someone else's this year. And I decided to stick to the job that no one else can do for me.
It's strange how, the baby-that-was-not-to-be, ended up creating for me, the space required in my body and mind to let the truth bubble to the surface. And those couple of days of donkey riding had enabled me to slow down enough to notice that truth as we hobbled along.
I called J to tell him, and he admitted it was the first time in our 10 years together that he'd had serious concerns about one of my jobs. Though J being J, had never stood in my way, and let me come to the decision myself. Agonising as it was.
So the guy pushing my trolley was Eritrean, the nurse that took my blood pressure was Polish, the assistant that plugged in the IV was Russian, the anaesthetist was American, and the doctor herself French. But they were all speaking Hebrew to each other.
They all asked if I was okay, and the French doctor stroked my arm and said everything was going to be fine. I thought as I looked at her sympathetic face, that I must be only a few years older than her son would have been had he lived.
The aneasthetist put the mask over my face - they all waved and smiled and said 'Good night' in English.
And that was the last thing I remembered until I opened my eyes to see an old man beside me with a long grey beard, his Jewish 'kippa' still on his head with a matching Stars of David gown to me, being watched over by his orthodox wife in her brown bobbed wig, holding his hand as he too came around from his operation. There were quite a few of us lined up in the room on our trolleys and I was probably the youngest by a few decades. I felt grateful to be awake and for it all to be over.
Poor J, at this stage, was lost in the hospital corridors having as many problems with the Hebrew-speaking hospital staff. An American-sounding nurse came to our rescue and tried to call him a few times. 'Oh dear' she said, 'He's really lost and he sounds kinda annoyed. He probably feels bad he's not with you. Don't worry - he'll find you soon I'm sure.'
After about 15 minutes J appeared bearing newspapers and bag of fruit. I was so happy to see him. Everything was suddenly all right just having him there.
We spent the rest of the afternoon together in the recovery room reading newspapers and mulling over life - which though the circumstances were strange and not exactly positive - felt like a tiny island away from all things dwarf, and our not uncomplicated working scenarios
And a little space for a rest, courtesy of our non baby.
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