Had we been waiting all these months for an appointment with the wrong doctor?

Wrong Doctor

Stories that Uplift / Leora Rosenberg

T

he appointment with the surgeon looms on my calendar. My mental one, of course. Writing it down on an actual calendar would make it all too real.

The evening before, I look at the email reminder… 3:35 p.m. appointment, pediatric surgery.

Pediatric?

My husband is flabbergasted. “I specifically said I was making an appointment for my wife… didn’t I?”

Had we been waiting all these months for an appointment with the wrong doctor?

We try calling the office and leave a message on their machine.

The next day, an hour before the appointment, my phone rings. It’s the doctor’s office.

I pick up, hands shaking… and my phone dies.

I do a desperate “charge my phone, jab it on, call back” thing, but they don’t answer.

And that’s when my baby falls off the bed.

I freeze for a moment at the gush of blood and then spring into action, putting pressure on her wound, then calming her down with an ice pop.

My husband walks in, eyes wide.

“We’re going to the kupat cholim anyway,” I say weakly.

He scoops her up, sticks her in the stroller, and we head to the doctor.

The first thing we ask the receptionist is if our appointment is, in fact, with a pediatric surgeon. She nods.

“So he wouldn’t see me, would he?”

She looks at me like I’m insane. “He’s a pediatric surgeon.”

I blink back tears. “Okay. Well, our baby fell off the bed. Is there any doctor here we can show her to?”

The secretary peers at our sad baby. “Show her to the pediatric surgeon.”

Our number is called.

We go in, and the doctor checks our baby, avoids getting punched in the head, and says she’s totally fine.

We sheepishly tell him the rest of the story. How we thought he was an adult doctor, and we made the appointment by mistake.

He shrugs. “I can check you anyway.”

So I have my appointment, with the wrong doctor, but the right shaliach. He’s a wonderful messenger with good news, thank G-d, and while I’d never want my baby to get hurt, if she had to fall, at least the timing was right.

Spiritual Genes

Overheard and Overseen /Mrs. Elana Moskowitz

Recently I overheard someone talking about a family she knows. She called them “The Smart Cohens,” suggesting that everyone in the family is highly intelligent.

We’re familiar with this, where everyone in a family shares a common trait; we call it genetics. Sometimes a family’s genetic makeup tends toward being athletic, musical, tall, short, or blond. Are common family traits simply a chromosomal fluke, or is there a spiritual principle that reinforces this phenomenon?

Rav Dessler explains that when a person is born, Hashem assigns him a specific part in His Grand Master Plan, a place where only he can reveal Hashem in This World. Hashem provides each person with every possible tool necessary to fulfill his unique duty on earth. By living life intentionally, and overcoming nisyonos to the best of his ability, every person has the capacity to fulfill the role Hashem has intended for him. The tools Hashem provides can be attributes such as beauty, intellect, wealth, longevity, charm, creativity, ambition, etc., as well as challenges like hyperactivity, poverty, anxiety, heart disease, inability to focus, forgetfulness, impulsivity, etc.

Sometimes Hashem determines that an individual’s children continue the duty of their parent. This, says Rav Dessler, is how we make spiritual sense of inherited family traits. This helps us understand the concept of common family traits: “The Schwartzes have always been musical, their great-grandmother was a concert violinist.” “The Bergs are great at math, their father and uncles are all math professors!”

We may also observe how wealth or poverty travels through generations of specific families. The same principle applies here as well. If their family’s celestial calling requires affluence — or the converse, a chronic shortage of funds — they will inherit these tools to achieve their objectives.

But if wealth, or poverty, or any other heritable trait is unnecessary for the next generation to accomplish their spiritual duty, Hashem prevents that trait from getting passed on. How many families have we seen lose tremendous wealth? Or suddenly “make it big?” Or find that “My mother’s agility seems to have skipped a generation?”

From a spiritual perspective, there’s more to hereditary traits than just genetics.

While You’re Waiting

In Real Time / Esther Kurtz

“IT might be a lack of B vitamins. Or possibly Lyme. Let’s check the basics, see if something comes up.”

My doctor was calm, and I wanted to trust her nonchalant tones, but it was me who’d suddenly gotten tingling up and down my legs for a few days.

I’m usually a lazy hypochondriac —  I think I’m dying, but do nothing about it. But this time I happened to have a yearly physical scheduled a few days after the symptom onset.

A few days later when the blood work came back normal, it was time to escalate and visit a neurologist. While I waited for the blood test results, I tried leaning on my bitachon, and on nature.

“Hashem, You can do anything, You brought this, you can take it away at any time,” and “Whatever it is, is good for me anyway, and we don’t know what good is.” And then telling myself, “It’s most likely just a B12 deficiency, no biggie.”

When the doctor started recommending neurologists my internal freak-out started revving. Was I dying? What horrible condition did I have? Would it spread to the rest of my body? Would I be confined to a bed, blinking once for yes and twice for no?

Yes, my mind jumped there that fast. Then my doctor said one more thing. “You never know, it can just clear up by itself.”

I made the appointment… and canceled it a few days before it was scheduled. My symptoms were gone.

And I was reminded that often the test is what happens in limbo. That’s where the real test of bitachon is, keeping that menuchas hanefesh while everything else seems to be up in the air.

The worst was never meant to come to pass. But what did my mind do when it thought it might?

Bitachon is all about who you become in the process, not just a thanks when it’s over, or a cry when it’s confirmed. The end is guaranteed either way, so you might as well enjoy the ride.

I know, I know, easier said than done.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 917)