Free The Making of a Nurse by Tilda Shalof Page B

his disease, right down to the molecular level. “I wish I didn’t know,” he said bitterly. “I can’t enjoy the luxury of denial.”
    Dr. Yosef Ben Cassis, the Chief of Hematology, grabbed his shoulders and shook him lightly. “But, Amos, you have the best diagnosis,” he said. “You of all people should realize that! Your type of leukemia has the best survival rate. Don’t you realize how lucky you are?”
    No, he didn’t. Apparently, he didn’t want any kind of leukemia.
    Samuel Abulafia always came with his wife who fussed over him. He was a well-dressed, elegant gentleman who whistled to the little sparrows outside the clinic. He had pet names for them such as “Tzippy,” “Pastilla,” or “Yona,” and they would alight upon his shoulder, come right into the clinic with him, and keep him company during his chemotherapy.
    There was Yeshai, a young rabbinical student, dressed in a long black coat and black hat. He was pale, not just from leukemia, but from living a life indoors, immersed in the study of the Torah and its commentaries, the Talmud. His strict religious observance prohibited a woman’s touch, except in cases of “life endangerment.” So, when I held his arm to take blood from him, I teased him by reminding him it was for medical reasons only, but I couldn’t coax a smile out of him. One day, as he lay on a stretcher receiving his chemo, I asked him about the tract he was studying. It concerned the question of whether or not it was permissible to eat an egg laid on the Sabbath.
    “But the chicken did the work,” I said, getting involved in a discussion I knew nothing about.
    “Are Jewish chickens supposed to observe the Sabbath, too?” the patient lying in the bed next to Yeshai joined in. He was a secular Jew, a farmer from a kibbutz.
    “It is forbidden,” Yeshai began weakly. His chemo was finished and I opened up his saline line to give him more fluids. He was shivering and I covered him with a wool blanket. “It is forbidden to partake of products created on the Sabbath. The chicken has broken the sanctity of the Sabbath and thus the egg it produced is rendered unkosher.”
    “We must train our Jewish chickens better,” the farmer said, bemused.
    Yuri was an eighteen-year-old new immigrant who had had to defer his army duty because of his illness. He was worried about the stigma of not serving in the army, but I heard Dr. Ben Cassis say privately that he would probably not survive long enough to experience that stigma and would have to endure only the stigma of cancer. His parents tiptoed around him, speaking in Russian. Yuri translated for them and had his own questions, too, such as, “What does ‘white blood cell’ mean?” or “When will be my last day?” He was alarmed to overhear Dr. Ben Cassis say he had “no cells.” He came over to where I stood in the blood-drawing alcove. “What that means, no cells?” I explained that the chemotherapy had wiped out all his cells, good and bad, to the lowest possible level, called the nadir. This had made him very vulnerable to infection, I said, butsoon his bone marrow would begin to produce healthy cells that would protect him.
    Later, Aviva reprimanded me. “Don’t talk to patients so much, Tilda. Leave that to the doctor.” But Hannah, who was the head nurse of the clinic, didn’t mind what I did and she preferred to offer patients warmth and affection rather than factual information. She was a petite, lively woman with a mane of wild dark blond hair and lots of jangling jewellery and silver rings on her fingers. Hannah ran the clinic like the hostess of a cocktail lounge, moving amongst the patients, chatting and laughing with families, offering advice, tea and coffee, and ensuring everyone was comfy. She made her rounds to each patient receiving chemo or a transfusion, offered blankets (it was blazing hot, but after chemo, most patients felt chilled), painkillers, or a clean vomit basin, and always a kind,