Corona and Stridor - Keep Breathing.

Thank goodness we live in a country that has an emergency health system, ambulances, and educated doctors. If you're sensitive to scary kid stories, don't keep reading (though, thank G-d it has a happy ending).

Thirty-six hours later, I'm finally ready to talk about what happened at 2am yesterday.

Yehonatan, my beautiful and amazing boy who is almost six years old, who just 'recovered' from Corona (though is still run down and not quite himself), came into our room and wheezed/coughed twice. He couldn't talk at all. He could barely breathe.

Wide awake, I leapt out of bed, grabbed him and beelined to the freezer. I held him there, having him breathe in the cold air, and kept him calm by talking about a chicken eating ice cream in Australia (but made sure it wasn't funny since he had very little oxygen). I had Ariel call an ambulance immediately.

(brief backstory: I spend time on different Facebook groups to hear parent stories, some for funnies, some for awareness and learning how to be a better parent. Literally, only two days ago, I read something about stridor. I've known about croup, but not the scariness of stridor. Anyhow, one mom said that the most important things to do are to take the child to the freezer, keep them calm, and get medical attention. I didn't necessarily know what Yehonatan was going through, but I figured the first two wouldn't hurt.)

While I held my second son in the cold, trying to keep his body warm, I started having trouble thinking and making sentences for him. Despite trying to remain calm (I am usually the calm before; the hysterics after), I was so worried about him that I had to call Ariel over to hold him while I went and dry-heaved in the bathroom. I returned quickly and held my curly-man there for what felt like an eternity, listening to him wheeze with shallow breaths, waiting for the ambulance to arrive, and trying not to imagine the worst.

They finally arrived, apparently quickly, and Ariel took him down where the EMTs gave him oxygen, took his vitals (oxygen levels were at 100), and headed to Laniado.

When I was home alone, I sat down on the couch, put my head between my legs and breathed slowly. My fingertips and toes were tingling and I felt nauseated. To distract myself and try to get oxygen back into my own system, I called my brother and asked him to just talk to me, which he kindly and lovingly did.

It didn't take long for my husband and son to arrive at Laniado, where they gave him an inhalation treatment, took more vitals, and declared stridor as the culprit. Below is a picture of him on his treatment (when he still couldn't talk).

The doctor said that it likely was caused by an allergen of some type and that it usually comes on FAST - there's nothing that you can really do to prevent it. I don't think it's a long shot to say that Corona didn't help in this situation at all. Needless to say, we will be taking our son to see an allergist so that we can cover all our bases with him. Below is a picture of him after his treatment, but before he could really talk again.

In case you are unfamiliar with stridor (like I had been)... "Stridor is usually diagnosed based on health history and a physical exam. The child may need a hospital stay and emergency surgery, depending on how severe the stridor is. If left untreated, stridor can block the child's airway. This can be life-threatening or even cause death."

The medical staff at Laniado took care of Yehonatan and released within about ninety minutes and he was home, sleeping in my bed by 3:30am (can't say the same for me). Since then, he's been on two inhalation treatments daily and steroids. He's now able to talk and breathe, which is no small matter. 

I am incredibly grateful to Yehonatan for knowing that something was wrong and for coming into our room. I am incredibly grateful for whomever the mom was who spoke about stridor and gave advice. I am incredibly grateful to Ariel Woolf for calling MADA and going with our son to the hospital. I am incredibly grateful to MADA and Laniado for taking care of my boy and saving his life. I am grateful to my brother for listening and caring for me while I tried very hard not to freak out.

This is probably one of the scariest things I have ever experienced in my life (including the time Yehonatan choked on gnocchi). To see my son, to HEAR my son struggling to breathe, and not truly being able to do anything about it - it makes you feel so impotent. I keep hearing a sentence in my head: This could have turned out very differently... but it didn't.

But it could have.

So I'm sharing this with you. Make sure your kids know that if they feel anything wrong in their body, they need to tell their parents. It doesn't matter if we're sleeping and it's two in the morning. Make sure you know what to do for stridor or wheezing.  Obviously, breathing is not something to play around with (even more so if your child has/had Corona). I'm only now starting to feel better about it though thinking about it again triggers my anxiety. As of this evening, our Yehonatan is feeling better, but not quite enough to go to school. Hopefully the new week will bring us all good health. Good health and an iced coffee with vanilla ice cream (what we both decided on the other morning).  

Good health to all and may you never go through anything like this.

This Week's Reason for Rockets

The other night, our siren went off, indicating that there were incoming rockets to Netanya, where we live. My first response, on my way to the kids' room, was an expletive. The rockets were coming in from Gaza, a good 98 kilometers south of here (or almost 61 miles). It's approximately the same distance from Detroit to Toledo, Ohio, if that helps at all.

 

We're actually pretty far from Gaza, comparatively. Tel Aviv gets more rockets than we do, so, all in all, we're relatively safe. However, that doesn't make me feel any better about rushing my kids to the safe room after they're all sleeping, nor does it make me feel any more secure about the situation. Nor does it make me happy about the fact that there's now no school, no parks, and no beaches. We're officially being forced to be shut-ins.

So why the 'sudden' rise in violence from Arabs (not Israeli Arabs, mind you)? I'm referring to the "Palestinians," the ones stuck in Gaza, living under the wonderful (I use that term ironically) auspices of the affirmed terrorist group, Hamas, and, more officially, the 'do-nothing-but-steal' Palestinian Authority. 

There is a reason for the violence against innocent Israeli civilians. There's always a [claimed] reason... this time, that there are Arabs allegedly being illegally evicted from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah by allegedly racist Jews.

The short version of the truth is that it's basically a landlord-tenant issue, something I'm very familiar with as an attorney. Here, the Arabs, who had been long-time tenants of Jewish landlords, were either illegally squatting or overstaying as tenants (unlawfully remaining in the property past the end of their lease term) and the Jewish landlords had decided they wanted the tenants out. The Jews took the Arab tenants to court to get their rights enforced and won at every level. Period. That's it. No drama necessary. In most "normal" countries, this would have been the end of it. But in Israel, when something provides an excuse for violence, many times, the Palestinian Arabs will take it.

Let's start from the beginning of this case. In the city of Jerusalem, the capital of the legitimate and recognized country of Israel, there's an upscale Arab neighborhood named Sheikh Jarrah, about a mile north of the Old City of Jerusalem. And before you get all excited that Sheikh Jarrah is in some broken down area where Arabs live in squalor amongst the rats, here's a nice description of the area:

A quiet, affluent district, Alshaykh Jarah is known for the American Colony, a stately Ottoman palace turned hotel with lush gardens and shops selling books and antiques. The area is also home to consulates, the late-19th-century St. George’s Cathedral, and archaeological sites including the Tomb of Simeon the Just, said to hold the remains of the priest. Upscale bars and Middle Eastern eateries dot the neighborhood.

Some of the land and property is owned by Jews (it is an Israeli country). Legally, the rights of the owners and the tenants was determined both centuries and decades ago, respectively. We're talking 19th century (1800s, to be clear) and the 1950s....

Why is it an issue now? Honestly? Because the Palestinian Arabs are frustrated and angry. To be honest, this is what oftentimes happens in landlord-tenant disputes. I suppose I can't blame them for being upset that their tenancy is over, but it happens. The landlord doesn't renew the lease because you're a lousy tenant or because he wants more money or because he doesn't approve of your behavior or because he wants to renovate or who cares. It's his/her legal right. Here it appears that some Arab leases naturally expired, some leases were violated by the tenants, and others are just illegal squatters with no legal rights whatsoever.

Regardless, being pissed off doesn't give you any new legal rights. 

But let's play the 'what if' game. What if the judicial system of the Ottoman Empire and British Mandate law and Israeli law were all wrong? What if the tenants have the right to continue to live in Jerusalem? Does that give Hamas and all the anti-Israel crowd the right to fire hundreds and thousands of rockets into a neighboring country against innocent civilians who had nothing to do with a landlord-tenant issue and who have likely never even heard of this neighborhood? Does that give pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel people the right to proactively threaten, "in support," to murder Jewish people in New York simply because they're Jewish (yes, this is happening)?

By the way, in case someone makes a claim that this is a violation of international law, it couldn't be further from the truth.  

Fact: International law does not forbid Jews to live in areas of Israel that the media likes to refer to as the "Occupied Palestinian Territories."

Fact: International law does not forbid individual Jews from owning property in the "Occupied Palestinian Territories."

Fact: International law does not require, much less permit, ethnically based denial of the legal rights of property owners.

In other words, Israel, the country, cannot deny individual Jewish landowners their legal rights, even if other Israeli laws are wrong. This has nothing, zero, zilch, bagel to do with allegedly illegal settlement activity.

So now you know why they're firing rockets at us. 

It's an excuse. Nothing but an excuse to murder Jewish children and Jewish adults.