on the Internet from a store in Los Angeles and paid $1,570 for.
In those days the home page on her computer, at home and at work, was the website of a famous and innovative cosmetics company, and she even downloaded screen savers from their site with all kinds of variations on the company’s logo.
Dael’s conscription sent her back to her ordinary news site home page and to a simple Nivea face cream, having put the rest in the hands of her chosen plastic surgeons. She chose them withgreat care after investigation, and she also made inquiries as to anesthetics, but since she was unable to get her hands on any, she made do with various tranquilizers, which she took care to vary after a few months because she thought that this way she would save herself from getting addicted.
To date Mandy had spent $68,000 on plastic surgery, and it was clear to her that as long as Dael was in the army and he still had time to be served—this was what her life would look like. About her death, she refrained from thinking.
IN THE MEDICAL FRONTLINE OR there was unexpected stress. The saturation level of the oxygen in Mandy’s blood began to drop. Seventy-five. There were a few minutes of very professional and controlled alarm, and in the end the operating team succeeded in stabilizing the patient and the operation continued.
But so far as Dr. Yagoda was concerned, those stressful moments during the course of the surgery on Mrs. Amanda Gruber concluded a chapter in his life. He would no longer perform plastic surgeries in Israel. He would no longer come to Israel at all, not even for the Passover Seder or Rosh Hashanah with his sister in Nahariya. His connection with the State of Israel was at an end.
Yagoda was so alarmed because for the first time since he had been living on his own without any love, he had nearly lost a patient on the operating table. He connected the drama in the OR to the country in which it had taken place, and to the grievous cardiac condition of its inhabitants, and decided to return to Germany the next morning. He considered giving up surgery altogether, and restricting himself to pre-operative consultations in a private clinic.
Before leaving he glanced at Mandy’s chart. There was nothing in it about sensitivity to any anesthetic whatsoever. He left the OR, ripped off his mask and gloves, threw them all into the nearest bin, stopped at the first telephone he came across, dialed information, and asked for the number of Lufthansa in Israel. At Lufthansathey answered in German, told him that a flight for Frankfurt was departing in five hours’ time, and promised him that he would make it. There were two places left in business class.
Dr. Yagoda felt that he was advancing with resolute steps toward a turning point in his life. From Frankfurt he would take a train home, announce that he was taking a month’s leave, and disappear for two months at least. Who knows, perhaps in those two months he would find a new love, which would shoot jets of hope into his empty soul, and he would be filled with new strength. The German doctor had learned to exploit his love affairs to store up energy for times when the daily grind turns you into a carob pod that’s been lying in the desert for a year.
EIGHT HOURS AFTER the complicated operation, which had succeeded in the end, but had cost the surgeon his peace of mind, Mandy lay on her stomach in the nice room they had given her, bandaged and immobilized in a number of places, but open eyed and completely au fait .
They had promised her five stars, and she had nothing to complain about because all she could see of the five stars was a bit of white carpet, but she couldn’t tell if it was wall-to-wall, because she couldn’t see the end. If she had turned her head to the right, the patient would have been able to see more of the carpet and part of a cupboard. But turning her head involved excruciating pain, and she had to call the nurse to hold her hand when she turned
In those days the home page on her computer, at home and at work, was the website of a famous and innovative cosmetics company, and she even downloaded screen savers from their site with all kinds of variations on the company’s logo.
Dael’s conscription sent her back to her ordinary news site home page and to a simple Nivea face cream, having put the rest in the hands of her chosen plastic surgeons. She chose them withgreat care after investigation, and she also made inquiries as to anesthetics, but since she was unable to get her hands on any, she made do with various tranquilizers, which she took care to vary after a few months because she thought that this way she would save herself from getting addicted.
To date Mandy had spent $68,000 on plastic surgery, and it was clear to her that as long as Dael was in the army and he still had time to be served—this was what her life would look like. About her death, she refrained from thinking.
IN THE MEDICAL FRONTLINE OR there was unexpected stress. The saturation level of the oxygen in Mandy’s blood began to drop. Seventy-five. There were a few minutes of very professional and controlled alarm, and in the end the operating team succeeded in stabilizing the patient and the operation continued.
But so far as Dr. Yagoda was concerned, those stressful moments during the course of the surgery on Mrs. Amanda Gruber concluded a chapter in his life. He would no longer perform plastic surgeries in Israel. He would no longer come to Israel at all, not even for the Passover Seder or Rosh Hashanah with his sister in Nahariya. His connection with the State of Israel was at an end.
Yagoda was so alarmed because for the first time since he had been living on his own without any love, he had nearly lost a patient on the operating table. He connected the drama in the OR to the country in which it had taken place, and to the grievous cardiac condition of its inhabitants, and decided to return to Germany the next morning. He considered giving up surgery altogether, and restricting himself to pre-operative consultations in a private clinic.
Before leaving he glanced at Mandy’s chart. There was nothing in it about sensitivity to any anesthetic whatsoever. He left the OR, ripped off his mask and gloves, threw them all into the nearest bin, stopped at the first telephone he came across, dialed information, and asked for the number of Lufthansa in Israel. At Lufthansathey answered in German, told him that a flight for Frankfurt was departing in five hours’ time, and promised him that he would make it. There were two places left in business class.
Dr. Yagoda felt that he was advancing with resolute steps toward a turning point in his life. From Frankfurt he would take a train home, announce that he was taking a month’s leave, and disappear for two months at least. Who knows, perhaps in those two months he would find a new love, which would shoot jets of hope into his empty soul, and he would be filled with new strength. The German doctor had learned to exploit his love affairs to store up energy for times when the daily grind turns you into a carob pod that’s been lying in the desert for a year.
EIGHT HOURS AFTER the complicated operation, which had succeeded in the end, but had cost the surgeon his peace of mind, Mandy lay on her stomach in the nice room they had given her, bandaged and immobilized in a number of places, but open eyed and completely au fait .
They had promised her five stars, and she had nothing to complain about because all she could see of the five stars was a bit of white carpet, but she couldn’t tell if it was wall-to-wall, because she couldn’t see the end. If she had turned her head to the right, the patient would have been able to see more of the carpet and part of a cupboard. But turning her head involved excruciating pain, and she had to call the nurse to hold her hand when she turned
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