A couple of weeks ago I was rushed to hospital with breathing difficulties. The medical team diagnosed coronory failure and sent me for a "catheterism" operation. This is not as complicated as it sounds. The surgeon introduces a very thin catheter through one of the main arteries to check out the bloodflow in your heart and repair the damage (see image on the left). The following link explains it in more detail. http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4491
The whole procedure took less than an hour and I was fully conscious during the whole operation. Really, I felt like a car being taken to the garage to have a faulty valve replaced!
Anyway, the extraordinary thing was that afterwards, the surgeon approached me to check if I was OK and asked me where I was from (all this took place in a Spanish hospital). I said I was English and he looked surprised. "From your name I thought you were Jewish," he said. "No," I replied. "In fact I'm Catholic." "OH!" He said, "I'm Palestinian!" I just stood there staring at him for a few seconds and finally we both burst out laughing. The man had operated on me as best he could, even though he thought I was a Jew!
I don't remember his name, now, but I really do want to thank him from the bottom of my heart.
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