“Yasher koach, Levi Yitzhak! One night of sobriety!”
Levi Yitzhak was a bochur with an acute marijuana problem who had shown up stoned for his initial consultation. After Rav Kuper, his mashgiach, and Aunt Frumy, his legal guardian, fired his previous therapist who was supposedly treating him from across the ocean but never demanded accountability, they were on board for continued treatment. Levi Yitzhak, however, was not as enthusiastic and still needed convincing. Part II
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hile I generally try to get to my office very early in the morning, long before my first patient, this particular morning I had an excuse. The spring air was crisp, the sun was shining bright, and I’d decided to take a more circuitous route, stopping at my favorite bakery for a power cup of coffee and a croissant on the way in to begin what was already shaping out to be a fantastic day.
I cut straight to the chase. “So, you’re pretty much high all day, tzaddik?”
Levi Yitzhak was a bochur who was slowly killing himself,
yet he wasn’t particularly interested in what I was offering to help extricate him from the pit he’d crawled into.
He’d had a tough childhood, having started out life with the challenge of a mother who was hospitalized with a postpartum manic episode shortly after his birth. Her subsequent diagnosis of bipolar disorder and his father’s exodus from the family didn’t make his toddler years any easier.
From the age of five, Levi Yitzhak had been raised by a loving aunt and uncle whose own children had already grown up and married. Uncle Boruch and Aunt Frumy cared for her sister’s son like their own, but no amount of varmkeit could keep Levi Yitzhak from rebelling. By the age of 17, he’d been kicked out of a number of institutions and finally landed in an open-style yeshivah, bringing along his significant substance-abuse prob
I may have made an enemy in Reb Ruvy, but I had just saved Mahyer’s life. The tradeoff was worth it
Reb Ruvy was a shady medical askan from Bnei Brak who ran a “yeshivah” for troubled bochurim to keep them out of hospitals. When he brought Mahyer to my office so that I could quickly fix him up with some strong meds, I knew I had to take matters into my own hands. PART II
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hen Reb Ruvy pushed an envelope with a wad of cash in it toward me as payment for getting his charge, Mahyer, medicated without hospitalization, it was clear to me that he was in way over his head and endangering Mahyer in the process.
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Jose didn’t flinch and refused to touch my peace-offering even as it sat in front of him
I don’t exactly look like the rough-and-tumble bouncer type, which is why some of my patients have asked me about the cap hanging on my coat rack emblazoned with an official “Hospital Security” insignia. Truth is, I still wear that cap I received back as an intern it keeps my head protected from the Jerusalem elements, and keeps my heart focused on always trying to make a kiddush Hashem.
“Be nice to the nurses,” the older medical students would advise us as we started our clinical rotations. “They’re your best friends or your worst enemies.”