Sunday, March 15, 2009

Things are in progress

CT scan with contrast dye tomorrow evening (!). That was quick, I only called today. I guess it's just for an MRI that it's difficult to make appointments. Sabrina will come with me to the CT tomorrow, it's in Be'er Sheva. Sabrina acts as Rivka's doula back-up for me in Be'er Sheva. :-)

As far as Cecilia, the Sudanese woman with the graft and health problems, I started calling around. I learned that my plastic surgeon from Soroka- the only one I respect, head of the department- is well known for his pro-bono (volunteer) work in plastic surgery. He has gone to Somalia and Africa to close cleft palates, and here, also, he has worked extensively with refugees. And I *know him personally*! (but I didn't know this about him). I'm going to call soon, he said to call him after 8PM. I'll post this update after I write about the call....

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I just got off the phone. I am so happy- he agreed to see her! He suggested an initial consult and we'd go from there. He was unsure of how to use the facilities at Soroka (operating rooms, care in the ward post-op) and get around everything that needs to be gotten around, but he said lets just take care of one thing at a time. He told me to call his secretary and make an appointment for her for mid April. He'll be out of Israel until April 7th; actually he's leaving *tomorrow*. If I had waited to call because of a million reasons I could've waited, I'd not reach him for a month. Now he knows about Cecilia, and is expecting to see her (us) during Pesach week. I am hopeful about this. Now I am a plastic surgery doula, also. :-)

When I first got on the phone with him, I said that actually I am not calling for myself, but rather on behalf of someone else. He said, "oh, I see. But first tell me how you are doing". He is a mensh (a Yiddish word meaning a respected and humbly honorable person), I really hope that we can improve her quality of life for her and her family. We all know that usually when bad things happen, we have no way to understand it at all.

I am greateful to Hashem that sometimes we *do* get to see how to use bad to remold it to good. I think it's called Tikkun. :-)

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