416-756-6000

Is that my telephone number?

No. It's the number of North York General Hospital.



For the past 18 months or so I've had a very close relationship with that phone number. If it shows up on our phone display without my expecting it to, my stomach clenches and I prepare myself for the caller and the news on the other end.

Earlier this year I would ask people to daven for my father, who was in hospital.
Early last year I would ask people to daven for my father, who was in hospital.
I stopped telling people in the blogosphere about my hospital knowledge.
About my knowledge of ambulances and emergency rooms.

I don't even want to say about my knowledge of other city hospitals, other hospital phone numbers over the years.

My father spent nearly 3 weeks in hospital in March 2006.
He was in hospital between December 2006 and March 2007.
He was in hospital for a few days in May 2007.
He was in hospital for 10 days in July 2007, missing his grandson's bar mitzvah and family celebration in the course of events.
He was in hospital for 10 days in August 2007.
He was in and out of emergency about three times over the course of a week a couple of weeks ago.
A few days later he was back in emergency and was admitted.
He was in hospital for a week.
He came home on a Friday afternoon.
He was back in emergency on the Monday. He was admitted on Tuesday.
My father is in hospital once again.

We have to find some humor in all of this. Someone I'd met in the emergency room in March 2006 asked if my dad was a "frequent flier" at the hospital. Not too long ago I told someone that with all my father's accumulated "airmiles" at the hospital, he could've already travelled around the world and back.

Maintain your health, be thankful if it's good, enjoy your families and friends...and be extra-nice to doctors and nurses.

I hope none of you have to know hospital phone numbers off the top of your head!

My father's name is Yaakov Arieh ben Chaya Malka.

A little bit of davening on his behalf might just be the medicine he needs.

Thank you.

A Fancy Name...

...FOR THE SAME DIRTY JOB!

I saw this ad on a local hospital career website.

Hmmm...an Environmental Services Partner.

I wondered what that could be...



Environmental Services Partner
We have a number of temporary (five months) part time opportunities for Environmental Services Partners who will dry and wet mop floors and stairs, collect garbage, clean washrooms and replenish supplies, vacuum and spot clean carpets. You will also carry out terminal cleaning procedures as prescribed by established procedures in preparation for new admissions, can clean isolation rooms according to specific Infection Prevention Control protocols.

The successful candidates will have a Grade 11 education (or recognized equivalent), the ability to read, write and speak English competently, preferably previous Environmental Services experience and 1 year of related experience in a health care facility. (Related experience and potential will be considered) You must have attended WHMIS training, have the ability to work with minimal supervision, and must be willing and prepared to operate all housekeeping related equipment including swing buffer, high speed burnisher and automatic scrubber. You must also be prepared and able to use all personal protective equipment including CBRN gear, full faced-mask, and tyvek suit. Must possess an Infection Control Core Competency Certificate, be able to lift 20-30 pounds, and prepared to respond to and attend to Chemical Biological Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) incidents.

Interested candidates are invited to submit a resume

The Phone Call

The following post might bother some people, because they might suddenly have a different impression of me.

What can I say?

I'm me. And I do what I have to do. I did what I felt I had to do. Wanted to do.

And this blog is my confessional box, and this post is serving as my confession.

Last Friday night, we made early Shabbos -- our shul davens early, and my husband came home early. We sang "Shalom Aleichem" and my husband had just finished singing "Aishet Chayil." I told him that although we always made kiddush and bentched while growing up, we didn't do Aishet Chayil and not even Shalom Aleichem. We had a step in Orthodoxy but most of the time I guess we were in Conservative Judaism.

Just after I made this statement, the telephone rang. Nobody of real importance to us calls us on Shabbos because people who know us know we're observant and wouldn't answer, but my husband looked over at the call display and saw my parents' name and phone number and announced it with a questioning tone to his voice.

We'd both spoken to my parents before Shabbos and they would not use the phone, (times have changed in their household) and especially not to call us...unless it was an emergency.

When Pesach rolled around, my husband had decided to forward our home phone calls to his cell phone, so as not be bothered by ringing house lines on Yom Tov or Shabbos. But we'd told my mother if there was ever an issue, to call my cell phone number (I rarely get calls on it anyhow)and I'd leave it on over Shabbos and Yom Tov. I'd hoped that phone would never ring at those times...

But my husband hadn't forwarded the house calls to his cell this Shabbos, and now on the landline was my parents' phone number facing us. And why on the landline and not on my cell phone?

I asked, "What do I do?"

I was told to answer it, and I heard a distressed and panicked voice when I picked up the receiver: "WE'RE GOING TO NY GENERAL. HE'S HAD A STROKE AND A SEIZURE!"

Oh. My. G-d.

You cannot imagine what went through my head at that moment. I didn't know what to do. What to say.

I tried to shut my mind down. And I held myself in check as my husband made kiddush, blessed my youngest son (my other two were staying with friends over Shabbos), washed and made ha-motzei. I allowed myself to eat some fish and soup...and then I said: "I HAVE TO GO THERE!"

I knew it was not right to break Shabbos -- by answering the phone and by going to the hospital -- but this time I thought it was the end. A year ago, March, I was called and told my father had been rushed to emergency, and when I got there, he was in a catatonic-looking state. They'd thought he'd suffered a massive stroke, and there were no reactions, just a waxy look to his face, staring at nothingness. At that time he spent 3 1/2 weeks in hospital. Just two months ago, he came home from spending 3 months in hospital.

I silently asked Hashem to forgive me, and my husband gave me a Tehillim. I panicked and said: "I don't even know what I'd read in it." (sad, but true. My father reads Tehillim daily, and has for years, and his daughter doesn't even know where to find her way in it, ie. what to read when.) But I thought I needed something/anything to hang on to.

I rushed off....

When I got to the hospital emergency area, my father was lying on the gurney he'd been brought in on, oxygen mask on, but he was cognizant. He was talking through the mask, telling my brother -- whose Shabbos had also been "disturbed" -- to go home. And my mother said a few times, "I shouldn't have called you."

Yes, you should have, Mom. Nobody deserves to face these trials on their own. This is my father, you are my mother, and we are a family.

To make a long story short-- my father probably did not suffer a stroke, although even the paramedics had first thought he did, as did the attending emergency room doctor. But he did have a very lengthy seizure, as he sat in his chair at the dining room table, prepared to bentsch. The after-effects of a seizure often mimic strokes: tiredness, general weakness, slurred speech, confusion, etc.

My father was in the hospital, admitted in the early hours of Shabbos morning, and poked, prodded, tested, X-rayed, questioned over the course of the next few days. Thank G-d he didn't suffer any more seizures, nor did that "grand mal" one have truly lingering effects. His medications have been reassessed, and he was given his walking papers. I'd love to be able to add: "and a clean bill of health" but we know that's not the case.

He was released today, Yom Yerushalayim, a celebration for Jews the world over, and a celebratory day for us.

My Shabbos could have turned out so very differently. I have a very vivid imagination, and I can also be very realistic. I thank G-d that my father is still among the living.

It pains me to know that perhaps I was selfish last Shabbos. I needed to answer the phone. I needed to go to the hospital. I needed to know exactly what had landed my father in an ambulance and emergency room, and see him for myself. I made the judgment call that it was okay to break Shabbos at a time like this; I deemed it an offshoot of Pikuach Nefesh. G-d forbid anything should happen to my father in the next several hours, my mother would need me.

As I traveled to and from the hospital, I felt guilty. There are people so much more religious and pious than I am, and I figured that they would not take it upon themselves to do what I had done and was doing. I wondered about a friend whose child was incredibly sick for lengthy periods of time and eventually succumbed to an early, untimely death. Had he ever broken Shabbos because he felt it to be a dire, critical situation at the time?

And you shouldn't know, but just a week earlier, someone I know lost her mother Shabbos morning. Her mother passed away in her house. The daughter was there with her brothers...and apparently did not do anything until after Shabbos was out, ie. calling the authorities and chevra kaddisha. Halachically, was this correct? She is very frum, and I know she was in limbo, not yet formally deemed in avelut, and it was Shabbos. But should she have and could she have broken Shabbos to make the necessary phone calls? (any knowledgeable people out there with the answer?)

But as I traveled, I thought of these people who honored Shabbos above all else. Perhaps in my case, it was the continued honor of Kibbud Av v'Em (Honor Thy Father and Mother) that was foremost. That has sustained me throughout my life and has been at the helm of the house I grew up in...along with Shmirat ha-Lashon. (guarding of the tongue against lashon hara/bad talk/gossip.)

Last Friday night, close to midnight, my father and mother urged me to go home. My father's words to me were: "Have a good Shabbos."

And on Motzei Shabbos, I was able to speak to him on the phone, and my father's words to me were: "Have a happy Mother's Day."

Dad, each week that you're "here," I can have a good Shabbos, and each day that you're "here" is a wonderful Mother's Day for me.

We should wish each other a Good Shabbos each week, and may you be around to wish me many more happy Mother's Days!