Your Results Are Here
Nine days after a bicycle accident and a chaotic trek through Israel’s healthcare system, X-ray results finally arrive — long after the real story is over.
Last Monday night, we were coming back from the local pool. It was a light and peaceful evening. The world was at one in South Tel Aviv, where grittiness is our reputation, but heart and hidden gems make up for the callousness.
We were biking back home from an after-preschool dip. With his father in front of me on his bike, and me and my son, following behind, Jake made a turn. The turn.
Now, turning on a bicycle is not a complicated thing. But we were cruising in tandem.
My husband took a creative twist. I tried willing my bike into perpendicular-ity, to jut across the bike lane like his. We needed to cross the street at some point, but I thought we were waiting one, last a block.
Now, whether it was too slow or too spastic, my turn did not turn out the way I envisioned.
While it wasn’t the first time I had fallen with Barak on board, thankfully it had been a few months. I assumed this would be like before. We get up, dust ourselves off, and I try to erase the event from his memory. With any luck, he will resemble his father in dexterity and coordination.
I never saw that pesky half-sphere, red concrete blockade coming. Or standing there, in a line. My front wheel snagged, and we were going down. I did all I could to shield him. I heard Barak’s bike seat clatter.
A few strangers started to gather, as they do in this country. There’s no such thing as a good Samaritan in Israel. All Israelis are good Israelis. Whether you trip on the sidewalk or fly off an electric scooter, people flock to your side.
I waved them off, not wanting the attention, not believing I’d need it. I should have sent at least one do-gooder for ice.
My four-year-old was unharmed and staring at me. He seemed to believe that If he looked long and hard enough, I would levitate off the ground. But I didn’t stand. I couldn’t unclutch my thumb, which Jake has already requested once. Now, he pleaded.
I will wait a beat until the time feels right. I will unpeel my fingers and see that everything is fine. We’ll go home on our merry way, tucking our child into his bed together, using all of our fingers.
But my thumb was very much not fine. I’d never seen it look like this before: twisted, building pressure, and at the wrong angle. Everything you don’t want to see in a jointed digit.
Jake’s initial frozenness started to thaw. He picked up my bicycle. I looked at him. We didn’t know what to do. Do I go to the hospital? Urgent care? Ambulance? Taxi?
We knew the closest help was not close by. My head was starting to spin. I was not sure that I could get up. I couldn’t feel my ever-swelling thumb, which either is the best of news or the worst of news.
We tried opening our healthcare app, and couldn’t locate emergency contact information. The next day I noticed it was on the login page, the first screen we opened, and we didn’t even need to click in. Their UX designer should make the button red at least, or make a language option setting. There are thousands of immigrants, who, when they have an accident, they don’t freak out in Hebrew.
So, we tried calling the hotline several times. In the end, we failed to reach a human. But I knew I could flag down any random citizen to come to my aid. I spotted a young man with a kippah, looking trustworthy enough. I asked him if he knew who to call.
Before long, I gave my coordinates to The Red Star of David, which will send an ambulance.
I look back at Barak, and I don’t think he’s blinked this whole time. I’ve tried to reassure him that I’m gonna be okay. He should close his eyes. As if he would be able to fall asleep at bedtime, sitting up on this post-fall bicycle, with the kickstand down and him facing his injured mother.
If he wasn’t so tired, what happened next would have made his life: emergency vehicles galore.
First one, then two more, and then a fourth emergency volunteer show up on bright yellow motorcycles to wait with me until the ambulance comes. Their lights were a blur, illuminating the darkening street.
They’re coming to see how I’m doing, but can’t answer, Do you think I should go to urgent care? Does it look broken? At least they’re with me.
I told Jake to lock up his bike and take my child home to sleep. I’ll be fine. With this pack of guys around me, he begrudgingly left.
Meanwhile, the ambulance was taking an eternity. One volunteer rider suggested canceling and ordering a taxi. Which I decided to do, not realizing that this then disperses the four guys standing guard over me until my chariot arrives.
So, there I am, sitting on the sidewalk with my busted thumb. Passersby look at me questioningly. I tell them I broke my finger, seeing as I don’t even know how to say the word thumb in Hebrew.
Calling the cab has delayed my hospital ride. The app says, on average, it takes a minute and a half to match you with a driver. It took ten minutes to match me and then another six for him to show up.
By the time he came, soon after entering the highway, we were crawling in standstill traffic from a one-night-only Orthodox community protest along the exit. Exactly where I needed to get out. The driver recommended going to Maccabi, my healthcare provider’s urgent care, just off the highway, rather than Ichilov Hospital, where I’ve requested to go. I could see Maccabi looming, above the lanes of traffic.
So, I asked the driver his advice. We were so close, but stalled. None of the men in my life this evening have been clear about what they think I should do. He says, like the motorcycle guys, I can’t tell you what to do, but maybe it would be good to walk.
I realized if I stop the ride, I could save even more money. While this is not the point of the evening, it is the point of my life.
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No ambulance, which insurance might not have covered anyway, and now only using most of a cab ride. Jake forbade me from the cheapest option: walking two blocks from my accident to a bus stop.
The cab driver asked if I want him to close things out. After another three minutes, I decide that since the cab hasn’t moved, I will end the ride. I opened my passenger-side door, stepping into the right-hand shoulder of the static-but-full highway. An occasional motorcycle zipped past, ascending the ramp that I’m planning to travel by foot.
Meanwhile, the sun is setting. I am making turtle-like progress towards urgent care check-in. I hope once inside, it will be quicker than the emergency room. When Barak was a baby, we once spent six hours in an E.R. in the middle of the night; we could have just stayed home.
By this time, it’s 8:15, 45 minutes post-injury. As I walked, I noticed the shoulder ends where the offramp begins, and I was reaching that point quickly. There was a sea of cars.
And when I looked to the right, straight off the highway, the building that I needed to get to was now slightly behind me. Not only would the off ramp mean back tracking, the ramp was dangerous without margin, increasingly illegal, and it would add time to my journey.
I looked around at what separated me from Maccabi: an incline through shrubbery separated the highway from the main road above. In the fading light, I scouted for handholds. I considered whether I could scramble up with my one hand and two feet.
The alternative is to get clipped by an SUV on the non-footpath of the Ayalon. I stop thinking, and my body goes for it. As quickly and as safely as I can, so as not to injure any more parts of my body, I dig into whatever I can: sandy dirt and brambles.
I hope I won’t graze any homeless or dead bodies on the ascent. I scramble out the top, jubilantly close to my final destination, without so much as an unexpected meow.
Next to the sidewalk on the main, upper road, a man and his two teenage sons stare at me, inquiring as to where I came from. I say, the highway, my thumb is broken and I need to get there, pointing to the tower half a block away. They wish me success.
I check in, pay my flat fee of 108 shekels, and am issued a number that they’ll use to refer to me for the rest of my time here. The waiting room is deceptively empty.
After a few moments, I’m seen by a triage nurse named Dani. From her emotive intonation, I realize she’s a native English speaker. We both drop our second language. She’s from North Carolina, no, not near Charlotte, but Asheville. Well not Asheville itself, but a little town outside of it. I like her anyway.
I am encouraged by her liberal offering of pain medication. And that I can come back at any time and see her if I want some. And that I don’t currently need it. Dealer Dani, at my service.
By the time I see Dani, it’s 20:30. It’s been an hour since the injury, and the place closes at 22:30. I’m hoping to be in and out.
I’m sent to the X-ray room. I see a doctor. All of these stages have their own DMV-style waiting rooms and waiting times.
While waiting for imaging, I attempt to pee, careful not to involve my thumb. I realize I probably won’t be wearing pants for however long it takes to heal.
I make a classic mistake. I start googling what my injury is and how long it will take to heal. Will I ever be able to ride my bicycle again? I hoped my medical professional could give a more uplifting summary than what I read.
My WebMD-ing was occasionally interrupted by muffled screams. After a moment, I noticed other seated participants of socialized medicine are entering one of the handful of orthopedic rooms and exiting with a leg or arm bandaged up. As my number got closer in the cue, I did my best to forget this pattern.
My appointment finally came. I took a breath — one that would have been suitable for freediving — and entered. The doctor glanced at the X-ray: dislocated. He led me into an interior room.
He says this part will be the most painful, pulling out an injection and swabbing the site down. Both sides of my thumb base get a jab of numbing. Five minutes later, he’s cutting down a splint, I join the bandaged others.
I smile. It has only been an hour and a half since I got here. Time to go home. But then he adds, so that you won’t sue me, go back to get another X-ray. Come back after. We need to make sure there’s no bone fragments.
So, I’m sent through the system for another round. I remember Dani. Thankfully, I still don’t need her supply.
And I do it all again: imaging, doctor, waiting rooms. I notice that the snake bite punctures on my thumb have a bit of red runoff.
By the time I’m waiting for my final checkover, even more patients are waiting to see the available team. I take a break to book my follow-up appointment before heading back to my seat. I think the secretary tells me the ninth of next month. My eyes bulge. Last winter, when I needed to see a physical therapist for my last bike accident, they gave me the choice of a YouTube video exercise tutorial, or waiting until August.
But alas, I misunderstood. It will just be a few days delayed from the one-week mark.
When I get back into the same office of the same doctor who set my finger, I am literally the last one waiting. We finish at 23:30. Within seconds he confirms he did a good job. No need to take him to court.
I get home close to midnight, realizing I’ll need to become ambidextrous as quickly as possible. My non-splinted hand can barely reach with toilet paper.
Today, nine days later, the splint came off. After fudging the keep-dry instructions all week, I was still surprised it slid at the doctor’s request to pull it off. Today’s physician practically spoke in grunts, but there was no copay.
After the appointment, at home and checking my email, “your results are here” caught my eye. At the top of the pile was my X-ray from today. Maccabi never sent me my first or second ones from the day of the accident, but now that it’s all over, perfect timing.
Arielle Blackburn is a creative nonfiction writer currently threading together an inaugural anthology of works spanning lived experience and ancient texts. Her mailbox is perpetually open to critique and claps alike. You can follow along for future essays here on Medium at https://metropolitanpaisley.medium.com/ or at https://loomwork.substack.com/
