Eviatar H.

Being at the Rosomoff Center has been a profound experience for me.It has been like the story of the man who wakes up and looks out, and he sees the path far ahead of him and he says, “This path is easy.I can fly down it.”But the truth is he can’t fly, because he doesn’t have wings.What he does have is very poor eyesight.Because he doesn’t see the person below who holds him up by his ankles.And he doesn’t see the next person below who holds them both up . . . and on and on like a big human chain.That human chain . . . all of us connected . . . that is what really makes us whole. And that’s what this place is like.

For me this place is not just a medical or rehabilitation center.It is much more than that.My experience here has not just been a medical experience.It has been a real human experience.

I am Jewish and when we toast, we say “l’chaim.” L’chaim literally means “to life,” but it has a lot of meanings.It means to live life in full . . . to take life in both hands . . . to refuse to quit.This place makes you appreciate that.It helps you take back your life.

One of the problems with pain patients is that we are “stuck.”We stop doing things, and this place makes us move again.At the end of the day, I think that this staff helps us move in many more ways than just the physical. Not only our bodies.It also gives us the privilege to think and to feel again.Sometimes it takes us a lot of effort, but it happens.You bring us back to life.

It is very rare that an institute that has such superiority and experience deals with its patients with so much humility.In general, places like that are very strict---“It’s either our way or the highway.”If the patient doesn’t straighten up or do the exercises a certain way—“There’s the door; you can go.”But this staff fights for each and every one of us.And we, the patients, can feel it.

I want to share with you a personal experience. There is a particular exercise machine in the physical therapy room that was very hard for me to work with.It was very painful and discouraging for me.Then one day, my Physical Therapist brought me his own MP3 player, turned it on, and put the earphones in my ears.The music was “heavy metal” and it helped me to pass those first unbearable ten minutes on the machine.And once I passed the first ten minutes, I could do the full 30 minutes.And so every day after, I started working on that machine with the therapist’s MP3 player.What my therapist did was not being just a physical therapist.He was being much much more, and I want you to know that I felt it.And I want this staff to know that I feel the care of each and every one of you, and I’m so grateful for what you have done for me.