From Serious Diagnosis
to Minor Fatigue

Mazel Tov! To the great excitement of all my family and friends, my son was engaged. The girl was good-natured, talented, and “erlich,” as were our expectations and tefillos! Thanks be to God, the nachas and joy were at their peak!
Two weeks later. A hysterical phone call arrives: It was a friend of mine alerting me that my son had fainted in Bais Hamedresh and that the paramedics were working on him. I didn’t know what had hit me. My son had always been healthy and well, and had never been treated for or diagnosed with anything more than a typical childhood cold or virus. Even that morning he had seemed perfectly fine. What had suddenly happened that made him collapse?

I arrived at the scene, and my son had b”h regained his consciousness by then. The emergency personnel insisted on admitting him for further testing as to what had caused the sudden attack, so off we went towards a series of tests and diagnostics, one on top of the other.

At the end of the endless day, one of the doctors invited me to his office for a short talk. I was well aware that there would be some kind of finding, and hoped and prayed for good news as I followed the doctor to his room. “We haven’t yet received all of the results back,” the doctor began in his professional tone of voice. “As to our findings so far, we believe that your son has suffered some degree of an epilepsy attack.” I don’t know if the doctor kept talking after that point, because I was already distracted by worries: How do I handle this? How can I accept this unexpected situation? What will this mean to my son and to the rest of us in the future? Even more, how do I inform the new “kallah” about the sick boy she is engaged to?

I headed to my Rav. With great despair I poured my pain out and asked for proper guidance. The rav, known for his wise vision, recommended that I undertake the “pushka segulah” of the zanz’er rav for the following thirty days. He also advised me not to accept the preliminary diagnosis or mention it to anyone before the test results were all back. I followed his advice exactly.

Several anxious weeks passed as my son underwent many more tests and scans. Finally, after everything was over and the results were back, I received a note from the doctor stating his conclusive findings. Thank God a million times, the note said that there was no evidence of serious disease and that the episode must have been a result of minor fatigue!

My eyes caught a glimpse of the date on the report, and it was the 30th day of the pushka segulah . . . and my son is healthy as ever, b”h!