One accursed morning, in the midst of work, dreams and the children, they were informed that they suffered from A.L.S., the fatal nerve atrophy illness that gradually paralyses every limb of the body. And then the countdown begins. Meirav and Shmulik Levi of Be’er Sheva decided to bring a new child into the world. Shlomit Mor of Haifa went back to live with her ex-husband Yehezkel, and to take care of him. Galit Gero of Hod Hasharon commenced a photographic record of her husband Ilan for the sake of the children. Benny and Michal Ya’akobovich of Be’er Sheva went on a cruise around the world. Four tales of coping courageously with a foregone conclusion (lost cause.).
JENNY ELAZARI
Photos: Meir Azulai.
1. WE BREAK DOWN AND BUILD UP TOGETHER
The worst day of my life was the day that Shmulik was confined to a wheelchair,” relates Meirav Levi. “This was not the father that I wanted for my children, but I am comforted by the fact that the Lord has granted us a slow separation.”
Shmulik Levi, 35, of Be’er Sheva, is at the stage of A.L.S. where the body is paralysed and his power of speech is so disrupted that only his wife Meirav is able to understand his words. Levi in the meantime is defeating the statistics of the illness, according to which the life expectancy of patients is about three years. Since he was diagnosed with the illness, four and a half years have passed, and in the last year his condition has remained stable. Shmulik has a full-time caregiver, and functions as a programming engineer in a high-tech company with the aid of a special machine that enables him to operate a computer. At the same time he manages the southern branch of the IsrALS Association which promotes research into the illness.
In Shmulik’s case the illness started with dissonance of the voice, and very soon this was joined by a loss of balance. “Shmulik would go down to the garden with our baby, who was then eight months old. He would hold him – and fall down,” relates his wife Meirav, who is a social worker who is involved in professional guidance in the Jewish Agency. “At first I thought he was irresponsible!”
As is the case with most A.L.S. patients, in Shmulik’s case it took several months until the illness was diagnosed. When the nature of the problem became apparent, the couple needed a while to absorb their new situation. “They tell you that your husband will die in three years, and that there is no medication for the condition. They bring you to despair immediately,” says Meirav. “This is a massive blow. We were at the very beginning of our lives as a young couple, with many goals and plans. It was terrible. We hugged each other. We sat in the garden and wept. You realize that this is not a movie about other people – it is you. The realization comes gradually. Initially you go around like a zombie, but slowly you begin to lift your head and start preparing. To someone looking in from outside, Shmulik’s condition appears disastrous, but we learned to adapt, and we hope that he does not reach the final stages of the illness – a respirator and intra-venous feeding.”
After the initial shock, Shmulik and Meirav decided not to allow desperation to take control of their lives. The most significant decision that followed was to have another child. To-day they have two sons, aged five and three. “It was a difficult decision, but we always knew that we would have another child. I could have stopped everything to take care of my ailing husband, but I chose life: To enlarge the family, to continue my studies towards a second degree and so advance my career. These are things that give great strength. When the children jump at you in the morning – that gives you much strength to continue. As time passes, Shmulik has more to live for, like when our son lost a tooth, or when he commenced grade 1. The children accept the illness naturally. They know that their father is ill, and that there is no medication for his condition. Initially they asked why dad could not read them a story, why he was in a wheelchair, but they stopped the questions when we explained the situation to them clearly.”
In the meantime Meirav and Shmulik are trying to live lives as normally as possible, they try to go out for entertainment, and the house is full of friends. “But sometimes realization dawns, and you allow yourself to fall apart. Often we break down together, and we rebuild from this. Every time, we decide to pull ourselves together. Initially there were many instances of breakdown, because this is a type of illness which brings many separations – separations from functions such as walking and speech. Gradually another nerve fails, and another limb is “lost”. From a man who plays football, dives and hikes, I ended up with a spouse in a wheelchair. The worst day of my life was the day that he was confined to a wheelchair. This was not the father that I wanted for my children. In any event, if you sit and look at the glass that is three quarters empty, you reach a stage of misery and you collapse. With time you learn to enjoy the few things that do remain, like your son’s football game, or going to a movie. Only when you receive a blow to the face do you learn to accept the obvious as if it was an amazing thing. I am also comforted by the fact that the Lord has granted us a slow separation.”
In the final stages of the illness, when the patient is no longer able to breath on his own, he has to make the decision whether to be connected to a respirator. “Shmulik asked me what I thought, but I told him that that was not fair. I am not prepared to tell him whether to continue living or not,” says Meirav tearfully. “We have decided that I will not interfere in his decision. I do not think of the future, because if I do, I will not survive (the present). If I was to mourn all the time, I would crack up. You will never get out of it if you keep wondering when death will arrive. When it is all over – I am certain that I will collapse. What keeps us going is the hope that a cure will be found – even though I know that this is irrational. If we did not have faith, it would be hard for us to survive.”
Not only the patients change drastically during the course of the illness, but also their partners, due to the need suddenly to contend with a tremendous load, both emotionally and physically. “Today I look at the wishes of others beyond my own personal bubble. I know how to be more flexible, and to appreciate more even when there is less. To-day there is nothing that can stand in my way. There is no difficulty that can break me. People spend years with a spouse without appreciating them and without knowing them. I have learnt to admire Shmulik because of the illness. If I had been sick I would not have had even a quarter of his output. His capacity to cope and be active is amazing. He has no bitterness. He accepts the good that there is. His behaviour reflects on all of us.”
2. THE ILLNESS ATTACKED IN REVERSE.
When Shlomit Mor contracted cancer, Yehezkel was at her side. Now, with him suffering from A.L.S., she lives with him to take care of him, although they have divorced.
Yehezkel Mor, 53, of Haifa, is in the final stages of A.L.S. His body is completely paralysed, and he can only breath with the aid of a respirator. He cannot speak, hear or swallow and is fed by means of tubes implanted in his stomach. His brain remains perfectly clear, and he communicates with his surroundings by means of a magnetic letter board that is operated by the movement of his eyes.
In the case of Yehezkel, a software engineer at Elbit and the father of three (20, 26 and 28), the illness broke out over a year ago. The deterioration was very rapid. “His illness started in the opposite way to most patients,” says Shlomit, a senior cosmetician who has worked in the police force for about twenty years. “It started in the mouth, with difficulty in speech and with swallowing. At mealtime on New Year, after we were already divorced, I noticed that he had a speech problem – as though he was speaking with a sweet in his mouth. He also had difficulty swallowing saliva, and I thought he had undergone a stroke. I pressed him to be examined, and he tried to avoid this, but then he started having difficulties in walking.”
As in the case of Shmulik, the illness was not diagnosed immediately, but only after three months. “Dad initially denied that he was ill,” says his daughter Moran aged 20. “He was convinced that they had not diagnosed correctly. It is not easy to accept that you have an illness like this. Only when he could no longer eat, could hardly breath and walked with great difficulty, did he accept that he was suffering from A.L.S. Even before Dad took ill, he had a strong feeling that something bad was about to happen. He said to me, ‘Don’t take it for granted that there is a home and that I will be able to pay for your studies, because everything might vanish.’ Now this sentence is engraved in my brain. Then I took no notice of it.”
After the illness broke out, Yehezkel returned to the home of his ex-wife Shlomit, from whom he had separated about two years previously, and she takes diligent care of him together with their children and two caregivers. “It seems natural that he should come to me and that I should take care of him, since we had been married for thirty years,” says Shlomit. The divorce was clean, over a cup of coffee at the Rabbinate. We always remained in contact, including Friday night (Sabbath) and festival meals with the children. I wanted him to come to me, and he wanted to come and felt grateful. In the past I had suffered outbreaks of cancerous tumors, and he did not leave me when I was ill. As he helped me then, I help him now. There was no one-way street here. What happened in the past with the divorce no longer interests me. It has passed. In my opinion, our divorce was a mistake.”
During last Sukkot when he was connected to a respirator and stripped of all ability to speak, Yehezkel proposed marriage to Shlomit by means of the magnetic letter board. “I was very happy that he had proposed to me, and told him that I also want to. I had thought for a long time that I wanted to remarry him, but didn’t think that this would come about”. “This question was bound to arise at some stage. It was obvious after what had happened. I told the children and they agreed that I should get married, but there was nothing to celebrate.”
Why was it important for you to get married?
Shlomit: “Marriage was the expression of gratitude that he was able to give me, so why should I object? I love him and he is the father of my children. He is great. I don’t regard him as a sick person, I see it as the continuation of the years I lived with him. I feel that it is different if I am married.”
A short while after the interview, it became known to Shlomit that the Rabbinut did not approve the marriage. “In the letter that I received, it said that Yehezkel was not eligible to be married, but it seems to me absurd because not one of the rabbis had seen him. Yehezkel was shocked at the refusal of the Rabbinut. In any case, in the meantime, we had made a financial agreement in order that I should enjoy the benefits of a married woman, and I have not given up on the idea of marriage.”
Shlomit will not give up quite so fast. The illness of her ex-husband, she says, has made her more acerbic. Daughter Moran also says that this coping strengthens her. “People think that one collapses in a situation like this,” she says. “But the opposite is the case. You find in yourself strengths that you didn’t know existed. As a result of the illness I understood that I can look after myself. I also like myself more because I have discovered that I am able to contend with everything. But the most difficult thing”, concludes Moran as she bursts into tears, “is that unless a medical miracle occurs, father will not be with me at the important occasions in my life, like marriage and giving birth.”
“I don’t know how I will cope with a situation like this,” says Shlomit. “It is fortunate that I belong to a support group. In recent times, we have already thought that this is the end. Yehzekel has almost left us. But we are not giving up because he is not giving up. I know that he wants to continue living despite the state in which he is.”
Yehezkel who is lying in the salon during the interview and listening to the conversation wants to say something. Moran helps him with the letter board. On the board is written: “Shlomit did a noble thing and united the family”.
3. I RECEIVED A DEATH SENTENCE.
Ilan Gero hoped before he knew what his illness was that it was “just” AIDS or cancer. “You see how the illness has advanced,” he says, “it just comes and kills you.”
“I hoped they would discover that I had AIDS or cancer,” says Ilan Gero, 41, about his thoughts a moment before he was told that he was suffering from nerve atrophy, A.L.S. “I could fight AIDS or cancer, take medication, do something,” he explains, “but against this illness, there is nothing you can do, just wait for the end to come. When I was diagnosed as a patient, I accepted the death sentence of the High Court without appeal. They tell you that you are going to die. It is like winning the Lotto, but in reverse, because I didn’t even buy a ticket.”
The first symptoms of the illness in Ilan’s case was a quivering of the muscles in his body and a weakness of the hands. For three months the doctors could not diagnose the problem. “It occurred after a period of pressure at work,” says Ilan, a resident of Hod Hasharon, who is married to Galit and is the father of three children aged 3, 9 & 11. “We were not worried because I had never suffered from any illness in my life. The possibility of getting sick didn’t seem logical to me. Certainly not with a serious illness. Everyone thinks it won’t happen to him.”
Ilan’s illness was diagnosed about a year ago, but he continues to work as a manager of sales and computer services in a hi-tech company. He read about the illness on the internet and was shocked. “Initially I was in shock. I cried when they told me that I was ill, and I had never cried in my life before. Today I don’t cry any more. Crying will not help. The pain has eased and I have come to terms with it. What can I do?”
In the meantime, Ilan’s condition has deteriorated. His hands are paralyzed, he suffers from weakness in his legs and trembling in the muscles of his body continues. Ilan knows that this trembling is a sign of the next stage of the disease. “I feel the trembling all the time, even when I lie in bed and know that it can’t be ignored. You really see how the illness is progressing all the time and reaches the legs, the stomach, the shoulder, the mouth and the tongue. You see how it comes and kills you. There isn’t a day that I don’t fall. I realize that the day will come when I apparently won’t be able to walk.”
“Every area that trembles,” says his wife Galit, the owner of an independent architectural office, “is a sign that it has been smitten, and soon there will be even more damage. When there is trembling in the diaphragm, you know that the speech is about to be affected. Trembling in the legs means that the legs have been affected. You know which way the illness is progressing, and that in a month or two you won’t walk any more.”
Ilan: “And after that you won’t be able to breath. This illness is like a visitor who you know will come to your house, but this visitor will come and strangle you, and that is the feeling with which I live. He will arrive. He is already knocking at the door. A normal person would flee, but I cannot. I sit and wait for him to come and strangle me. Sometimes I wonder why I had to receive a ten kilo hammer blow directly to the head. Couldn’t I have got Parkinson’s or AIDS? They seem to me to be wonderful illnesses, because you can live with them. With this illness, there is further deterioration every day. There is no rest for a moment. I feel that something foreign has taken control of my body. I leave Galit and the children in the middle of life. I have to leave before time, and life will go on without me. Even if I live but do not function, it is like leaving, and all the more so if I die.”
“There is not the luxury of falling apart,” continues Galit. “I have to keep functioning for the children. You cannot fall into an abyss and take them with you. There are very difficult times, and then you go to sleep with all the problems and in the morning you awake to a new day.”
“One of the great difficulties was telling the children,” says Ilan. “We tried to wait as much time as possible before telling them. We started with this, but it was difficult to play the game as though everything was in order. I believe that the correct thing is to tell them the truth without hiding anything, because the lie is always revealed.”
Galit: “Our daughter’s first reaction was ‘who will pull the rope when we go mountain climbing?’ because until then Ilan had climbed with the children. This sentence was very symbolic.”
And despite the will to remain strong in front of the children, there are moments of breaking. “It happens when I look in the mirror and don’t recognize my own body,” says Ilan. “I have become very thin. The muscles have disappeared from my shoulders and chest. It is almost as if my body is disappearing. I look look like a skeleton, and I ask myself, just a minute, is this me? But I cannot get out of my body and run away.
“Every day I have to contend with new things that I cannot do, like lifting a glass. You feel that it is becoming more and more difficult to do something, and then comes the day when it actually happens: You can’t cut the steak any more. There are many moments of frustration, like for example when I cannot open the zip when I need to urinate. It is a terrible helplessness. When I lifted a fork I perspired as if I had lifted ten kilograms. Sometimes I ask myself if I absorbed or used more calories when I ate.”
From the moment of awareness of the illness, you realize the hour-glass is rapidly running out, and with it comes the urgent need of the patients and those close to them to live life to the fullest possible extent. With many it expresses itself in frequent trips overseas, as long as this remains feasible. The Gero couple has traveled to Thailand, Costa Rica and New York in the past year.
Galit: “Since Ilan has taken ill, our motto has been to exploit every moment. Now we are planning our next trip. You have to enjoy each day. Initially our starting point always revolved around parting, as if this would be the last time we did this. We took many photos. Ilan wanted to record what we were doing to leave meaningful material about him for the children, and about things that they did together, tapes, movies and pictures for the children.”
Ilan: “Every day is wonderful now, because tomorrow will be less good. Every person makes plans until age 80 and believes that he has many years left to live. With me that is not the case. For me they ‘fast-forwarded’ my life.”
Even so, the tours are conducted amidst physical disabilities and a heavy feeling of separation. During the tour to New York, for example, Ilan fell as a result of weakening of his muscles. “I fell three times on this tour, and fainted, and that was in fact good, because then you aren’t aware of the pain and embarrassment. When a baby falls, he puts his hands forwards. When I fall, I can’t stop myself.”
Galit: “The nature of what we are doing has not changed so much as our perspective of what we are doing. Everything that Ilan does raises the question if this will be the last time that he is doing this. In the end, you stop asking. These questions get you nowhere, so you put the pain in the drawer and you close it up there. Now we are getting on with all the things that we wanted to do. We always wanted to build a cozy corner in the back yard, but there was no money and no time, and the feeling was that it wasn’t urgent. Now it is urgent, and we are building it.”
Because of the illness, Ilan has undergone not only physical changes, but also emotional ones. “I am a different man today. More sensitive, less noisy. All of a sudden, I appreciate everything, every breath, every step. The fall has been particularly hard because everything was so good. I felt that I could do anything. Anything that I wanted I did. I was king of the world. I didn’t believe that anything terrible could happen to me. Once someone beckoned me with the palm of his hand and told me that I would receive a severe blow. I burst out laughing. It sounded like rubbish to me. I always said that I could do anything – that is how I felt. Before the illness, I felt that if someone was weak or pitiful, it was because he brought it on himself. Therefore I didn’t feel pity for beggars because I said to myself ‘why don’t they go and work’. Today I know that there are people who can’t do things, and it is not because of themselves.”
Galit: “Today he regards beggars differently. He can’t put his hand into his pocket any more and give them money, but he asks me to give them 10 shekels.”
The illness also changed Ilan’s relationship with his children. “If a person thinks that he will accompany his children throughout life, in the army and in their growing up, for me this won’t happen. I can’t wait for them to get to a certain stage and then speak to them. But I have to complete my accompanying them quickly and to give them today the benefit of my experience and everything that I have to tell them.”
“Suddenly, now that it is clear that Ilan will not be here for ever,” says Galit, “it also brings back the fire of falling in love at the beginning of our relationship. When the illness was discovered, it reminded us of the first days of our relationship. Even now, when I wait for him to enter the house, it is like the first days of our love. It is wonderful to hear him say ‘hallo’ through the intercom, and to get a kiss from him, because I know that perhaps tomorrow he won’t be able to say ‘hallo’ or give a kiss any more. The illness has tied us together even more, our partnership has become closer.”
“On the other hand”, she adds, “it is not easy to contend with the fact that Ilan has become weak and needs help. I shower him, brush his teeth and cover him with a blanket because he can’t move his hands, but you learn to live with this. It is patently obvious that I help him.”
Part of the ability of the couple to cope stems from the hope that a medication will be found for the illness. Ilan works to raise money which will be dedicated to researching the illness. “I am certain that a solution will be found for the illness”, says Galit, “but I am not certain that we will manage to get to it. But there has to be hope otherwise we take a pill and close our eyes. Without hope it is an on-going suffering, just to sit and watch while the body dies.”
Ilan: “I am more pessimistic than Galit. She really is convinced that a solution will be found to the illness.”
What about thoughts of death – is there fear?
“If a person fears that he will die, in my case, the fear is of the way to death. I fear that I will not be able to move, to breath, to swallow, to speak. Death brings a sort of comfort, because then you die and that’s it. I think that to die of heart failure would be fantastic – it’s a gift. I heard about a person who committed suicide and I said to myself ‘what an idiot. Why commit suicide when you are healthy.’ I would have been prepared to exchange problems with him. Suddenly I feel that all the jokes with black humour are about me, like the joke about the man who fell from the 20 floor – as he passes the 10th floor, they ask him how it is going and he answers ‘so far everything is fine.’! I feel that every day I fall another floor, and so far everything is fine, because as of today even the loss of my hands and my feel doesn’t seem so bad.”
4. LOSS AFTER LOSS.
In only 10 months Benny Ya’akobovich has been confined to a wheelchair. “There are things that we don’t speak about” says his wife Michal, “such as that we won’t get old together any more.”
“On the 5th August the earth opened its mouth and we fell into an abyss.” That is how Michal Ya’akobovich describes the terrible day about two years ago when her husband Benny (Bernard) was diagnosed as a sufferer of A.L.S. In Benny’s case the deterioration was fast: within 10 months of the diagnoses he was confined to a wheelchair. Today his body is paralysed and he has difficulty in speaking clearly.
Benny, 50, initially suffered from feelings of muscular pains and jumping shoulders. After three months during which he wondered from doctor to doctor, he was diagnosed as an A.L.S. patient. “The neurologist who diagnosed Benny,” says Michal, “said to me ‘I’m sorry’. If you had plans for your pension, advance them, because you won’t get to pension.”
Before the illness, Benny was a very active man. He was in the final stages of a doctorate in literature, taught at Ben Gurion University and served as the high school principal at the First Comprehensive High School in Beer Sheva, and as the regional inspector of literature teacher in the South. In the meantime, he has given up most of his activities, but continues to work as the High School Principal. His permanent care-giver transports him there every day.
“Our first year was the most difficult” say Michal who works as the head of a team in the Welfare Dept. of the Beer Sheva Municipality and as a student coach in social work at Ben Gurion University. The couple have four children aged 13, 17, 21 and 24. “We coped with the revelation, the understanding of what the illness was, the anger and the denial. We were certain that with us things would not be as with everyone else, and that the situation would not deteriorate so fast, but we were wrong. It was very difficult for us to tell our friends that Benny was sick. We were a very strong career-orientated couple with successful children and a nice house, and suddenly we were displaying weakness. But even as you tell others, you hear yourself speaking the truth that until then you tried to deny. I don’t know where the inner strength to cope comes from. We hardly cried, perhaps because Benny does not cry. We reached the decision to be strong and to radiate strength to the world."
Michal made contact with the IsrALS Association and was surprised to hear that Shmulik, the husband of Meirav Levi who studied with her at University, is suffering from the same illness. “After the amazement of how it was that I didn’t know, I teamed up with Meirav and she gave me two pieces of advice for which I am grateful to this day. She said to me to go on tours as long as Benny can still walk because by the time they pulled themselves together, they didn’t manage. She also told me that in road accidents people are killed without the opportunity to bid their families farewell, and I have at least been given the opportunity for a slow separation. At that stage, I didn’t understand how she could say something so cruel, but later I realised that she is right. We decided to travel the world.
In the last two years the couple has traveled overseas four times. Three months after the diagnoses they flew to Thailand. “It was an amazing trip, despite the fact that even then Benny’s legs had become weak,” relates Michal. The tour combined joy with sorrow. We realized that this was our last tour with Benny independent. Even then I had to tie his shoelaces and help him get dressed. I tried to include as many pleasures as possible in the trip so that we should have good memories.” The following three times that the couple traveled overseas, Benny was already confined to a wheel-chair.
During the interview, Benny was lying on a sofa in the salon and watching a football game while smoking a cigarette by means of a special machine, which didn’t require him to hold the cigarette in his hand. “The doctors have told him to stop smoking,” says his wife Michal, “so he said to the doctor ‘I am not going to die from cigarettes. Right!’ The doctor didn’t know what to reply.”
Michal tries to exude strength, but admits that she has to contend with many difficult feelings. “Every time I look at Benny my heart skips a beat, but I don’t show it because that would weaken him. It is hard for me that Benny can’t sit at the table with us. The damage to the intimacy between us is also hard to accept because Benny is a loving romantic. There is also continuing fear because the smallest thing could be a sign of the next deterioration. There are things that we don’t talk about, like the fact that Benny and I will not grow old together, and Benny will not marry off his children. The hardest week was when Benny taught me how to file all the accounts and letters from the bank. Then I realized that Benny was giving up the duties that he always did, passing on the baton as it were. I also have great anger but I am not sure against whom. Perhaps against Fate? But you don’t get angry with Fate. Nor against medicine which has not found a cure for the illness. There is anger against the world. Nature is generally clever, but how could it fashion an illness so cruel, where the head remains clear, but the body becomes like a sack. The body is unfaithful and the whole family, including the patient, witnesses the daily deterioration. You become aware of the losses. The loss of ability to hold a knife and fork, to hold a glass, to write and to walk; loss after loss. Every week there is a new loss.
How do you continue with normal daily activities despite everything?
“Today we are at the stage of coming to terms with what I thought would never come. We have decided to take ourselves in hand, and to lead good lives within the limitations of the illness. Instead of hiding under the blanket. You lift your head and live as best you can. Benny’s head remains the same head. He is still my partner, a partner that I can consult with and tell him things. All the sorrow and pain bonds the great love and strong friendship between us.”
THE ATLAS ASSOCIATION LENDS A HAND.
The Atlas Association was established in 1998, in order to support ALS patients and their families. The association assists the patients in coping with their day-to-day needs, and is involved in seeking solutions for their problems in functioning so as to enable them to enjoy the best possible quality of life.
The main activity of the Association, at the head of which stands Lea Schreiber, is the establishment of a national multi-disciplinary clinic for A.L.S., and the collection of funds to run the center. The center attracts doctors and care-givers of all disciplines, so as to spare the patient the need to move between different clinics.
The center attempts to meet as far as possible the needs of patients in advanced stages of the illness, by providing permanent care-givers, and by the purchase of specialized accessories such as wheelchairs, medical beds, hoists, portable computers, and devices that “read” movements of the head and translate them into symbols in a computer so as to facilitate communication with those around the patient.
In addition, the association holds support sessions and lectures, arranges fun days and social meetings for patients and their families, and publishes a monthly magazine. The association also sets criteria for the illness so as to assist in negotiations with the authorities, participates in the preparation of legislation for patients who might prefer to die, strives for a mobility allowance and special services without reference to the age of the patient and for the approval of “medical food” as a medication to be available free of charge.
The activities of the association are carried out voluntarily by its members, who consist of patients, members of their families and family members of deceased patients. Avner Saburai, a member of the management committee of the association, started working there because of his late wife who suffered from A.L.S. “The association also runs a website that gives information and support for patients and their families,” says Saburai. “The support forum on the website enables the asking of questions and the obtaining of answers based on the experience of other patients and members of their families.”
The address of the website of the association is www.atlasals.org.il, and the telephone number is 03-540-3270.
פרסום תגובה חדשה