Phantom limb sensation is not a psychological event. It is a physical sensation that an amputee feels following the loss of a limb. This is not the horrendous pain from the actual amputation. Years after a limb is amputated, a person may still feel like the missing limb is still there. It can be an itch on a foot that no longer exists or any one of numerous sensations.
Doctors aren't quite sure why phantom limb sensation exists. The trauma of losing a part of a body and the damage to the nerve areas probably have something to do with it. For many amputees, it takes years for the phantom limb sensations to go away.
Again, this is not the pain from actually losing the limb. The scene in Gone with the Wind in which the doctor says he has to amputate the patient's leg - without anesthesia - is as harrowing as any I have ever seen. Despite the screaming pleas of the patient - "Please don't cut!" - cut away the doctor does, as Scarlet looks on in horror.
Of course, amputating a limb is the method of last resort. After all, once a person loses a limb, he or she will never get it back. The lives of amputees are changed forever. Doctors, unless they are quacks, will go to great lengths to save the limb, first exhausting every other option. Even then, they will do their best to explain to the patient and the family why it has to be done, leaving the final choice and consent to the patient or the family.
No credible doctor would tell a patient he or she is fine and then decide the next day to amputate - especially without explaining and getting the patient's permission. This is called "informed consent".
Few scenes from the Oslo War are as harrowing as those of the Cohen children from Kfar Darom losing their limbs. Two teachers were killed by a roadside bomb and the three young Cohen children in their school bus were maimed for life. The perpetrator? Israel's peace partner, Mohammed Dahlan.
When I met up with the Cohen children, they were still living in an apartment near Tel Aviv, where they were undergoing rehab. The warmth and love in the family was readily apparent. The family's goal was to get through rehab and go back to Kfar Darom. Then to make the renovations needed in the house - wheelchair accessibility, ramps and dozens of other improvements -- to help get back to as normal a life as possible.
The Cohens have now faced yet another amputation. They have been severed from their home in Kfar Darom, as has been the rest of the community and the other Jews in Gaza. The Israeli government did not explain to them why this amputation was essential - the operation of last resort. If anything, far too many Jews displayed a sick glee as they observed their amputations and as the Arabs held frenzied celebrations. Their anesthesia was the equivalent of handing the patient a bag of sunflower seeds and saying, "Deal with it."
And it was not only the Cohens who were severed. It was thousands of loyal, law-abiding Jewish citizens who were cut off from Israel. The pain of these amputees is real. Even after the pain starts to fade, there will be years of phantom limb sensations - of searching for what is a part of them and has been brutally ripped away.
The amputated area is not the only place that will be greatly affected. The whole body has suffered a trauma and will continue to suffer for years. A few sympathetic words from hypocritical politicians will not solve the problems. They ring painfully hollow.
The collective rehab which will be undertaken by the 10,000 citizens of Gaza and Samaria, and those sensitive enough to feel their pain, will take years. Even then, life is not likely ever to be normal again. The trauma to these residents of the severed communities, as well as to hundreds of thousands of other loyal, sympathetic citizens, will adversely affect the entire country for years. Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem -- the entire Zionistic enterprise -- has been dealt a severe trauma.
I don't know how the Cohen children ultimately left Kfar Darom. Did they hobble on their prosthetic limbs? Did some police personnel wheel them? Did their loving parents, Rabbi Ofer and his wife Noga, carry them? In the scheme of things, the manner of their evacuation isn't terribly significant, yet I can't help but wonder.
I do know this. Whatever improvements the parents made to their home - the installation of ramps, the widening of doorways, the modifications in the showering facilities - will now all need to be repeated somewhere else. The family will not readily find a place in Israel with flat terrain, like Gaza, and an accepting and supportive community.
The heartbreaking trauma to the Cohen children is very real. But the trauma is not theirs alone. Much of the country will need rehab for a long time. The sooner the rest of the nation understands this, the sooner some kind of national healing can begin.
Doctors aren't quite sure why phantom limb sensation exists. The trauma of losing a part of a body and the damage to the nerve areas probably have something to do with it. For many amputees, it takes years for the phantom limb sensations to go away.
Again, this is not the pain from actually losing the limb. The scene in Gone with the Wind in which the doctor says he has to amputate the patient's leg - without anesthesia - is as harrowing as any I have ever seen. Despite the screaming pleas of the patient - "Please don't cut!" - cut away the doctor does, as Scarlet looks on in horror.
Of course, amputating a limb is the method of last resort. After all, once a person loses a limb, he or she will never get it back. The lives of amputees are changed forever. Doctors, unless they are quacks, will go to great lengths to save the limb, first exhausting every other option. Even then, they will do their best to explain to the patient and the family why it has to be done, leaving the final choice and consent to the patient or the family.
No credible doctor would tell a patient he or she is fine and then decide the next day to amputate - especially without explaining and getting the patient's permission. This is called "informed consent".
Few scenes from the Oslo War are as harrowing as those of the Cohen children from Kfar Darom losing their limbs. Two teachers were killed by a roadside bomb and the three young Cohen children in their school bus were maimed for life. The perpetrator? Israel's peace partner, Mohammed Dahlan.
When I met up with the Cohen children, they were still living in an apartment near Tel Aviv, where they were undergoing rehab. The warmth and love in the family was readily apparent. The family's goal was to get through rehab and go back to Kfar Darom. Then to make the renovations needed in the house - wheelchair accessibility, ramps and dozens of other improvements -- to help get back to as normal a life as possible.
The Cohens have now faced yet another amputation. They have been severed from their home in Kfar Darom, as has been the rest of the community and the other Jews in Gaza. The Israeli government did not explain to them why this amputation was essential - the operation of last resort. If anything, far too many Jews displayed a sick glee as they observed their amputations and as the Arabs held frenzied celebrations. Their anesthesia was the equivalent of handing the patient a bag of sunflower seeds and saying, "Deal with it."
And it was not only the Cohens who were severed. It was thousands of loyal, law-abiding Jewish citizens who were cut off from Israel. The pain of these amputees is real. Even after the pain starts to fade, there will be years of phantom limb sensations - of searching for what is a part of them and has been brutally ripped away.
The amputated area is not the only place that will be greatly affected. The whole body has suffered a trauma and will continue to suffer for years. A few sympathetic words from hypocritical politicians will not solve the problems. They ring painfully hollow.
The collective rehab which will be undertaken by the 10,000 citizens of Gaza and Samaria, and those sensitive enough to feel their pain, will take years. Even then, life is not likely ever to be normal again. The trauma to these residents of the severed communities, as well as to hundreds of thousands of other loyal, sympathetic citizens, will adversely affect the entire country for years. Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem -- the entire Zionistic enterprise -- has been dealt a severe trauma.
I don't know how the Cohen children ultimately left Kfar Darom. Did they hobble on their prosthetic limbs? Did some police personnel wheel them? Did their loving parents, Rabbi Ofer and his wife Noga, carry them? In the scheme of things, the manner of their evacuation isn't terribly significant, yet I can't help but wonder.
I do know this. Whatever improvements the parents made to their home - the installation of ramps, the widening of doorways, the modifications in the showering facilities - will now all need to be repeated somewhere else. The family will not readily find a place in Israel with flat terrain, like Gaza, and an accepting and supportive community.
The heartbreaking trauma to the Cohen children is very real. But the trauma is not theirs alone. Much of the country will need rehab for a long time. The sooner the rest of the nation understands this, the sooner some kind of national healing can begin.