“You have lymphoma tumors in your abdominal cavity.”

For a moment the blood left me like a wave returning from the coast to the sea. I was wondering, how this trouble picked me as its partner? How much time is left? How much further life is there?

This was early Saturday morning. The whole story started to unfold the evening before after a shower. I noticed that I looked like a dandelion. I went over to my wife and asked her opinion and she replied “You’re yellow!”

At the time I was working like crazy to get my son’s new house built in our neighborhood. It was February and I was outdoors in 10-degree weather. As they say, I was taking it easy in my retirement.

For a few weeks my stomach had been giving me trouble, but like my Polish mother before me, I ignored the discomfort. I kept blaming fried food I had eaten, or maybe perfectly good soup my wife made for me. Now I was looking in a mirror and couldn’t believe how yellow I was! We called our daughter in law (Our family nurse) who told us to go to the hospital immediately.

We checked into the Emergency department and it quickly turned out I had a problem. A string of tests and a CT scan showed that there were two large lymphomas in my abdomen. In the middle of the night, I was hospitalized and told that an oncology doctor would see me in the morning and explain the situation.

Despite a reassuring explanation from the doctor the next morning, my mood was poor, my stomach ached and I felt like I had forgotten a toolbox in my stomach and every time I had to roll over in bed, I would reach out to help the crate go from side to side.

The doctor gave instructions to the hospital staff for a series of treatments and procedures in a quiet and calm voice as if she were blessing them, and it was evident that the staff had great respect and appreciation for this doctor, a fact that did not go unnoticed.

At this point my mood was as low as Antarctica on the globe. My bed that was on wheels was driven from an operating room to a procedure room and I was in a complete blur of senses. I abandoned my body to the doctors without caring what happened.

Suddenly I heard a gentle voice as velvet sang next to my ears

Darling, you send me
I know you send me
Darling, you send me
Honest, you do, honest, you do
Honest, you do, whoa

I opened my eyes and saw an ageless guy who worked in transport (moving the beds with the patients from one place to the other).

The song delighted me, I particularly enjoyed the singer’s soothing voice. I smiled slightly at him and he immediately changed to a happier song.

Don’t know much about history,
Don’t know much biology.
Don’t know much about a science book,
Don’t know much about the French I took.
But I do know that I love you,
And I know that if you love me, too,
What a wonderful world this would be.

By now I was awake. I enjoyed every sound and every line of the song and a broad smile came up across my face. I saw in front of me an angel who managed to bring me at once, to the equator and to give me the courage to decide that it is a wonderful world and I will fight the disease and continue to enjoy all this goodness.

I remembered hearing these songs when I was a kid, but I couldn’t remember the singer’s name. He told me it was Sam Cooke, who became famous in the late 1950s and early 1960s – I remembered he had a love song about age 16, and he started singing “Only Sixteen (1959) “. The song was happy but it was clear that the lyrics of the song did not fit nowadays. At the time when the song was played on the radio from morning to evening in Ness Ziona, my small hometown, we didn’t understand a word of it.

I asked him for his name and he answered me with a smile, Saint Anthony.

Saint Antoni of the Franciscan Order is known as a saint who finds things for those who are looking. My Saint Anthony knew all the corridors and hospital rooms and easily found his way through the labyrinth of the hospital and mostly found a way for my spirit to overcome the effects of this bad disease.

In the days that followed, he came to visit me and between one song and another he told me that he had worked as a bricklayer during the construction of the hospital and when they finished, he started to work at the hospital. I told him that he probably laid the bricks less good than the job he is doing at the present. The floors in the rooms were on the incline and all the medical instruments in the room that were on wheels rolled themselves into one corner of the room. We both laughed. I encouraged him to talk about his musical past and he told me that as a young man he sang with a band and even participated as a singer who warmed up the audience before performances by Bruce Springsteen who was known to have been a native of New Jerseyan. I didn’t investigate, because a good story is not supposed to be questioned. It was a little pity to me that it wasn’t Frank Sinatra who was born in New
Jersey, too. The main thing is that we both enjoyed the story.

At the hospital, my wife accompanied me with devotion and concern for my needs. I discovered nurses who had spent days and nights in complete loyalty to alleviate my pain and improve my health and spirit. My children and grandchildren came to strengthen my spirit, friends strengthened me with digital greetings and prayers for my recovery. Neighbors visited me in the hospital and cleared the snow in our driveway so that my wife could get to the garage of the house at the end of a long day at the hospital.

I felt that I was blessed and it is a wonderful world.

In the days between treatments, I walked with my wife in the corridors of the ward to get my bones moving but most of all I remember the walks sometimes I did at night. Silence was all around and here and there I noticed a quiet movement of nurses on the way to a scheduled task or to help another patient get rid of his pain.

I walked with a pole rolling on the three wheels, with bags with liquid attached to pumps that made sure to insert the liquid into my body at a predetermined pace. I walked quietly, wearing slippers I got from Israel that were of public interest. From afar, I saw Ramone, who was one of the cleaning staff. He worked the night shift with the silent floor cleaning machine, and he smiled at me and greeted me and offered to accompany me to help me push the pole. Although there was no need, I agreed. It occurred to me that maybe he was feeling lonely and looking for company. Most of the patients were elderly men and women who would lie in beds at all hours of the day and night and were not much company to the staff that maintain the building. I went by his side and asked him about what he was doing. He told me that he preferred the night shift because by the day he worked in a supermarket loading the shelves
with merchandise from the warehouse so he’d have enough money to raise his children to go to schools.

His hope was that his children would live a better life, and I told him that my parents were like that too, and my mother worked as a cleaning lady and me and my sisters showed her that her efforts would not be in vain.

Outside, light snow fell and through the hallway windows, which also had a sloping floor, we could see from the 3rd floor that the snow removal cars were working to clear the parking lot. I asked him how he was going to get home in the morning with all this snow? He pointed at a car standing in the parking lot, a plot that was bright and almost empty and proudly said “this is mine.” I praised the model of the car and saw him fill up with joy. I asked him to tell me about his children and with great pride he described to me each and every one and in what school they are studying. On the nights that followed we told stories in sequels and we both waited for the rest of the story and the next story. Before cleaning my room, he would peek to see if I was awake, then greeted me and asked when he could do his job in my room without interrupting. My answer was “Always come, just guide me so that I will not interfere”.

One day I saw Saint Anthony moving a patient to a nearby room, I called him “Hey Saint” and he smiled broadly. It was evident that I had made him pleased – every human-being has or does not have assets, but everyone has a name.

During the chemo treatments that followed, at times, I took a break from the surroundings and listened to Sam Cooke’s songs, the songs reminded me of happy childhood days, days of innocence.

Here and there glistening in my imagination, the smiling head of that angel, Saint Anthony who made me smile every time.

There are a lot of Angels around us, just open the doors to your hearts and they’ll be here.

Epilogue

Today, two years after those days, my body is free of those tumors and my spirit sails in good winds way north from the cancer circle.