DANCE STORIES

The Road to Recovery

Montreal, Canada, 2006.

In 2001 I underwent Triple bypass surgery. After my surgery my family was in the waiting room just outside the intensive care unit to get news of my condition.

Later, when I was well enough they told me that something peculiar happened while I was recovering.

One of the attending nurses came out and reported that the surgery went well, that all my vital signs are good, but that there was something strange and worrisome about my behaviour.

They observed that I was restless, fidgeting and moving my feet.

They never saw such a reaction after surgery, and were worried, which made my family quite consternated. I immediately knew what had happened.

What the baffled medical staff observed, while I was lying on my back in intensive care, just hours after triple bypass surgery, was me doing a dance.

What happened was this:

Weeks before my surgery I heard of a man, a friend of my brother's, who had bypass surgery that went well, but during the procedure something went wrong with the blood circulation to the brain and he lost some function and memory.

So after my surgery, as soon as the anaesthetic wore off, still groggy, I checked whether my brain and memory were still functioning normally by practicing the dance "Yare'ach Limon", which I had taught the night before checking in to the hospital.

I was very relieved that I remembered all the steps of the dance, unaware that I was creating a medical first.

And, little does Kobi Michaeli know how his dance is used in medical experimentation!

Happy dancing everyone.

Peter Smolash,

Montreal.

 

Peter's contact details: psmolash@sympatico.ca

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