Look Around

I was driving home yesterday after 15 hours (in Arabic khamesta3shar sa3a) of continuous work, from 5 am till 8 pm. I grabbed a quick dinner from Mcdonalds and was heading home on Friday night at 9pm. Just at the time people were getting ready to go out to enjoy their Friday night, I was returning home to sleep early.

On Saturday (a vacation) I left my apartment at 4 am and headed to work, the streets totally empty as all people were dead asleep after enjoying their night. Driving down to the hospital I was thinking of how much work I was doing for less than 8 dollars an hour, the sleepelss nights and the responsibilities I am holding and the lawsuits I am at risk of getting every single second at my work, and the fact that most people esepcially in Jordan believe I am so rich although I am struggling with my apartment's mamanger to cancel the additinal 25 dollars from rental last month. I was thinking of the horrible food poisoning I got 3 days earlier and woke up at midnight to throw up a few times and barely had time to clean up the mess because i had to head to work as soon as possible.

At that moment on Saturday morning, I felt I was unlucky.

I arrived to the hospital and started seeing the patients. I am doing a rotation in the oncology (cancer) center. I started seeing Julia, a 47 year-old lady who lost her leg to cancer. She was in the hospital getting her last dose of chemotherapy but we had to keep her in the hospital because she couldn't stop throwing up. She looked at me with her tearful eyes "When will this all end"? , I was lucky enough to get away without directly answering her and waited till my big boss come later in the day to explain it all to her.

Later I came across Samuel, a 25 yr old guy originally from Guatemala. He crossed the borders to Mexcio illegally then crossed the Mexican-US borders again illegally, and this journey took him 3 months during which he was away from his family. He was born with hemophilia, a bleeding disorder where people tend to bleed heavily. Since he was running from the border patrol all the time he kept falling off heights and walls and ended up with bleeding all over his joints until they got totally destroyed. He is 25 but he has the mobility of a 70-year dying man. He told me that all of his family members died of this disease because they got no treatment for the bleeding events they had, and he wanted to reach the US for a better life. Of course this guy will be sent to Guatemeala after he's treated.

I saw six or seven more patients all with cancer and left the hospital a while ago. Somehow, I gained all my energy back, went to the apartment manager and threw the 25 dollars in her face (in Arabic zattet-ha bi khilgetha o goltelha biddesh jmeeltek yel3an abooki) then went back home and was ready to sleep at 8 and wake up at 4 and was emotionally -yet not physcially- ready to spend the rest of my life without a day off. I made a short prayer and called my family telling them I'm Ok and waiting for them in the summer......

Best of all.... I felt very lucky.