Ido Benny, not yet 13, got into a war for his life - and won as a superhero

"This is a cerebral aneurysm, the bleeding did not stop," the hospital announced. My son, Ido, suddenly collapsed and fought for his life.

This week we celebrated an exciting bar mitzvah for him

Tal Lev Ram

15/07/2022

Friday, 15 July 2022, 18:18 Updated: 18:50

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A lioness mother, a mutual guarantee of a loving and embracing community in the moshav, exceptional medical personnel who gave our son the required "golden hour" - and especially one heroic bar mitzvah child.

A small body with the soul of a super-warrior, who continues these days in his war to get his life back on track.

These are probably the main reasons that gave us the unique opportunity to experience Ido's rebirth, and to celebrate his Bar Mitzvah with him this week at the hospital.

All this in the midst of the rehabilitation process we are currently experiencing in the wonderful pediatric rehabilitation department at Safra Children's Hospital, at Sheba Tel Hashomer Medical Center.

This is the first time I have opened the computer to write text since the incident occurred.

Friday morning, more than a month ago, when Encouragement collapsed and arrived at the hospital in critical condition.

Heavy deliberations have accompanied me over the past month on whether to open a window and tell our personal story, in our most intimate and difficult moments as a family.

A small body with the soul of a super warrior.

Ido (Photo: Courtesy of the family)

This is probably the most personal column I will ever write in my life.

The desire to maintain our privacy as a family and of Ido accompanies us even now, but at the same time a feeling that our story, the experiences from the hospital, the rehabilitation and the strengths required of it and everything we learned along the way in the journey we experience - must tell.

For the benefit of all and for those who, God forbid, will face an event or similar moments that have the power to crush a family from the ground up.

It's not just gratitude for the endless list of people who have accompanied our lives over the past month, at Tel Hashomer Hospital, in the wonderful community in Moshav, where people were involved in saving Ido's life, and of course close family and good friends who surround us with endless devotion.

It is first of all the need to tell a different story about what sometimes seems to us to be obvious.

In days of violence against medical staff, in a time of murky politics that sanctifies tribalism and hatred between different groups in Israeli society, here at the Edmond and Lily Safra Hospital at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, there is only one important thing.

This goal unites everyone, the medical staff and the families of the patients: the health of the children.

Sometimes it's about their quality of life and sometimes their real life.

Here there is no difference between Jews, Arabs, secular, religious and ultra-Orthodox.

Here the war is about the things that really matter.

Along with the many bright spots that are visible to our eyes, during this period I also have a difficult and complex understanding that in too many areas of the country, and not only in the periphery, an opportunity for a "golden hour" and urgent life-saving treatment in the world.

In another case, with a deviation of a few minutes and a lack of appropriate means and the appropriate professionals, we were now in a completely different place.

For those who are looking for goals for the parties' platform in the upcoming elections, here is a particularly worthy one: the minimum right of every citizen in the country to receive at least a life-saving solution in an emergency.

It is inconceivable that a similar case in similar circumstances, rare as it may be, would probably have ended in death, due to limitations of medical treatment.

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"Need help, boy fainted"

Nothing testified to the tornado that devoured our lives on Friday morning.

We returned home on Thursday to a professional conference of my wife Lilach, which was also used for a fun family vacation in Eilat.

The next day, the routine awakening of the adolescents towards the transportation to the educational institutions.

Morning challenges that characterize the average Israeli family, of making sandwiches and a race against time that is not after the shuttles.

That particular morning I was not home.

As every year, we, members of Blich High School, gather for a meeting in memory of our friend, the late Lieutenant Lior Ramon, who fell 26 years ago on June 10, 1996, near the Pumpkin Post, in the eastern sector of southern Lebanon, in an incident in which four other fighters were killed.

On the exact same day that Lior fell, I get up at the beach in Mikhmoret for a summery and routine day.

Shortly afterwards I get a phone call from Lilach, minutes before the kids leave for school transportation.

Ido, she tells me, after getting up and washing his face, complains of a very strong and sharp headache.

Lilach updates that she is considering ordering an MDA mobile and has a first conversation with HaMoked, after she sat the child on the couch and sent the other children to school. Seven minutes later, Ido loses consciousness. I see the message about this in the session's WhatsApp group: " Must help with the child, fainted.

Whoever can come - let him come. "

Sheba Tel Hashomer Hospital (Photo: Reuven Castro)

This announcement will be of crucial importance in saving Ido's life.

Idan Bar Orian, a young doctor who lives in a moshav and we did not know before, arrives at the door of the house within a few minutes.

He recognizes the dilated pupil in his left eye and talks to his wife Irit, a daughter of the moshav, who is also a doctor, specializing in the surgical department at Laniado Hospital.

On the phone she provides him with the exact diagnosis: it is a head injury and not a heat stroke or seizures due to other reasons.

Irit provides him with a list of instructions to be given to the hospital in Tel Hashomer, which is the closest, and to the intensive care unit that arrives at our home shortly thereafter.

It is already clear to them that we are in a race against time.

Every second is critical.

Another neighbor, Dr. Sigal Salzman, head of the trauma and head injuries department at Tel Hashomer, contacts the relevant professionals at the hospital, some of whom especially jump out of the house before Ido arrives at the hospital.

On the short way to the medical center, MDA's intensive care team does exactly what it takes: performs resuscitation and gives Ido medical treatment that later saved his life. Intensive care mobile - each has an integral part in saving the child's life, its "golden hour" won, along with rare coincidences of the location and timing of the event at home, when the child is already awake.

A large and complex aneurysm

At the hospital the boy is being assaulted.

Ostensibly a weekend shift.

Friday morning, the hospital looked completely empty.

There are good hospitals in the world as well, but it is very doubtful that in an event of this kind, other hospitals in the world will show up in a short period of time with their best talents - like in Sheba.

that's how it is in Israel.

In a little over an hour from the start of the incident, around nine in the morning, Ido is already in the operating room.

We find it difficult to understand that at this stage Dr. Yaakov Zauberman, director of the neurosurgery unit at Safra Pediatric Hospital, other doctors, and the interns Dr. Mustafa Tzadik and Dr. Hanan Abu Pena, whom we will know well later, are fighting for Ido's life

. Otherwise, very few of those nerve-wracking long hours remain in my memory.Every opening of the automatic sliding doors in the operating rooms plays ping pong with you in the heart chambers - wanting and unwilling to see the surgeon come out towards you.

The surgery is over.

Dr. Zauberman updates with the transparency, which we greatly appreciate, regarding the complex situation. He talks about the actions taken to stabilize Ido's condition and that they still detect an aneurysm in the brain and the big dilemma whether to enter another catheterization operation to close the aneurysm or let the brain rest. And wait to sit in the morning.

It is advisable to linger on this point. Decision making and risk management are at the heart of the medical profession.

In our case, the correct turn at the junction was also made.

The two catheterizers, some of the best and most senior there are, Dr. David Orion, Center for the Unit for Invasive Neurology and Stroke, and Dr. Gal Yaniv, director of the hospital's cerebral and spinal catheterization unit. Which eventually turned out to be large and complex and was probably caused by a head injury that did not appear abnormal during a basketball game, five days before the incident.

11 hours of urgent medical surgery ended at 7pm on Friday evening.

Dr. Zauberman, Yaniv and Orion, all seniors, with careers and families, showed up on Saturday morning to check on Ido. , And spares no effort or resource to do so.A feeling that only in Israel such a thing can happen.

It is difficult to explain in words.

Ido and his family (Photo: Courtesy of the family)

Cynics may think that even the hospital has a degree of preferential treatment.

Two weeks in the pediatric intensive care unit of Prof. Gidi Prat, the director of the department, leave no room for doubt.

24 hours a day in Ido's room also provide a curious military reporter with an opportunity to watch from the sidelines in amazement at the level of professionalism and dedication of the doctors, nurses, nurses and medical staff, in the war for the lives of every boy and girl.

This is an elite patrol of emergency medicine, led by Dr. Marina Rubinstein. A tough, professional and meticulous hand, but generous. The field of medicine is not my field of coverage, and my understanding of it is small, but there are things that simply can not be missed. The standards, the learning and decision-making processes, the shift briefings, and of course the high dedication and sense of mission.The most elite units in the army and combat squadrons would quietly signify such a level of standards.

Due to his condition, Ido was placed in the main room in the intensive care unit for the first few days.

The amount of devices in the huge room is unimaginable, and the beeps in the room are unbearable.

Every beep bounces you from a restless sleep.

After the dramatic event, we feel that with all the difficulty, like on the road when all the traffic lights are painted green, we are on the right wave even before Ido wakes up.

Around us are Dr. Tal Sadeh and Dr. Reut Lerner-Kasif, the senior doctors, and of course the interns, who do not let us for a moment feel that they are functioning under the pressure of an endless 26-hour shift;

And of course nurses and siblings who are ultimately the beating, vital and professional heart in intensive care.

An endless list of people who have provided us with an island of stability and composure in difficult moments of uncertainty.

"We will take care of the data and numbers on the monitors, and you will take care of Ido," Reut used to tell us, in moments when the monitoring systems beeped and we looked anxiously at any change in the data on the screens, which until recently we did not understand.

Good morning, Ido

Encouragement first opened his eyes four days after he lost consciousness.

The process of awakening and disconnecting from the machines was accompanied by the immortal song "Parisienne Walkways" by Gary Moore.

A strange choice for a 13-year-old boy in 2022, but this song was played together by Ido and his brother Noam on the eve of Shavuot, and we never stopped hearing it on the trip to Eilat.

The perfect guitar howl rips through the space in the huge and equipment-laden room, accompanying our conversations with Ido with a plea and plea for awakening.

It is difficult to describe in words the feeling of the first vague look, but we will probably not forget it throughout our lives.

To a large extent, the intensity of the feeling is strong in my eyes from the day of his own birth.

Ido's rehabilitation process is dizzying on every scale, the power and intensity he radiates are unimaginable.

But life is not a movie, and the process of rehabilitation and return to normal life is slow and requires time, patience and especially hard work.

Like the hurricane that strikes surprisingly, the first blow is the hardest and most painful, but even after that you have to deal with the shock waves left by the storm.

The rehabilitation chapter is already a story in itself, and we are only at the beginning of the road.

But here, too, the positive experience from the intensive care unit returns.

It is difficult to explain in words the professionalism of the Department of Pediatric Rehabilitation under the management of Dr. Xana Landa, and its high level of professional functioning - and especially the dedication and love that surrounds all hospitalized children. In the profession, communication clinicians, etc., and of course the service girls, who, along with organizations such as Ezer Mitzion, play an important and very supportive role in the hospital.

An exciting bat mitzvah.

The celebrations for Ido (Photo: Courtesy of the family)

Life is not a plan as you request and of course you do not choose to get into such a crisis situation.

But alongside the difficulties, there are also points of light: the intimate connection and interdependence created with the child during the period in the hospital is difficult to explain in words, it is an emotional experience that can not be described using a keyboard.

The body now re-learns the commands from the brain.

Accelerated process of first steps and sounds.

The most basic needs initially become central, and the best way to deal with the difficulties and painful moments is to combine them with humor and laughter.

We understand at a glance that the situations and the relationship built will be taken with us for the rest of our lives, hence the importance of maintaining optimism and a smile.

Frustration and bitterness will not help at any stage.

Of course there is no naivety here.

Medicine in Israel, like many other areas of Israeli society, has many problems, loads, queues and huge and unimaginable gaps in the level of service and care between the periphery and the center of the country.

This is a system that, for example, finds it difficult to provide a psychiatric response to many teenagers and children who need treatment and sometimes hospitalization, and too few professionals are under a particularly heavy burden due to the consequences that are still too early to assess in the face of the corona epidemic.

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But along with all the problems, which are mainly related to national priorities, budgets and manpower, we have received in the last month, not to our advantage, further living proof of the quality of life-saving medicine in the State of Israel, and especially the quality of dedicated people and medical staff.

In the last month I have not dealt with the media, everything is dwarfed.

The news passed over me, and the Twitter account was left orphaned.

Life goes on, they have their own rhythm, and with them also a gradual return to a new routine, but out of a renewed and deep understanding of what is really important in life, and how much things are not taken for granted.

This is a private lesson for us, but others can also learn from it, because alongside all the problems in the country there is also something to be proud of.

In our new real life between Sheba Medical Center and Moshav, the main thing is the people - an embracing community and a family at home, and also a new community in Tel Hashomer of caregivers from all corners of Israeli society.

One language connects everyone, and that is the concern for children, their health and their future.

In the run-up to the upcoming elections, which are bound to have another murky and toxic wave, it is recommended that we all remember this as well.

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