Ephraim Andrei Kubik, a Jew from Brno, Czechoslovakia, talks of his bewilderment having health problems and not knowing why. “For more than two years, I suffered from various health problems, but the doctor insisted that everything was fine.” When the problems worsened, I decided to go to another opinion, and I replaced the attending physician.”
“I was sent for a CT immediately, and the results were particularly disturbing: a tumor of 3 cm, developed in my bladder,”Kubik recalls. “In less than a week, I was sitting in the hospital hall waiting for my confirmation for surgery to remove the cancerous tumor immediately. The internal and external struggle that I had to go through in those days was the hardest in my life. “
When he received the medical report confirming the immediate surgery the severity of the situation hit : “I entered a massive depression, feeling nothing but fear. It was my first time in the hospital and my first surgery ever. “
The next morning, after the successful operation, the nurse arrived at his room , woke him up and gave him tranquilizers. “I was drugged and confused, and I could not remember anything.” The next night he woke up with extreme pain and bleeding, and was sent to intensive care. When he was stabilized and returned to his room, a pleasant surprise greeted him: “The nurse hung my Star of David on top of me, to make me happy.
Another surprise awaited him a few days after he recovered. One of the staff members who knew he was Jewish hung the Israeli flag outside his window to “give me strength.” This beautiful act of love made me cry, Kubik wrote on his Facebook page. Kubik also posted the nurse’s good tidings which he will never forget. “The next day the nurse arrived, with the surgery report and its final results:” The tumor was completely removed, and there are no signs of secondary cancer cells,” she told me. It was music to my ears.”
Today, a few months after that surgery, Kubik feels like a completely new person who has received his life as a gift. All his goals have changed: “Since then, I've been doing my best to make others happy, like other people did for me with all these little 'gifts' that helped me survive the most horrific experience in my life.”
