In Order to Save His Life

Rav Shaul Leib Tabak shlit"a from Bnei Brak related the following:

For several years, I've been zocheh to give a Daf Yomi shiur in Rav Tobias's shul in Kiryat Vizhnitz. Baruch Hashem, the participants of the shiur who come regularly have forged close ties with each other, to the point that we are real yedidim. If one of our regular participants is missing, we truly feel it, as each member contributes his comments and questions.

That's how, when Reb Lipa didn't show up to the shiur for several days in a row, I grew concerned, asked around, and heard that he had a severe infection (a "roiz") in his leg.

The next day, I decided to do bikur cholim. I went to Reb Lipa's house, and I found him laid up in bed with a high fever. He was in a lot of pain, and the doctors told him he needed to receive high dosages of antibiotics intravenously. His devoted wife and children arranged for him to get the intravenous antibiotics at home, so he wouldn't have to remain in the hospital. They surrounded his bed and were at his beck and call all the time. They asked their family doctor to pay their father a house call, and he arrived as I was sitting at Reb Lipa's bedside, visiting with him.

The doctor examined Reb Lipa, looked at the leg, and was none too pleased. "The infection is spreading," he said. "I think the treatment you're getting may not be enough. You need to go to the hospital." He gave them a referral to the emergency room and urged them to hurry.

I wished my friend a refuah sheleimah and hurriedly left the house. The next day I called to inquire how he was feeling, and his son told me something that gave me chills:

"Two minutes after my father arrived at the hospital," Reb Lipa's son said, "he collapsed. The doctors immediately took him in for X-rays and tests, and they discovered a hole in his intestine, with internal bleeding that was life-threatening. They admitted him immediately for emergency surgery, sewed up the hole, and gave him several blood transfusions. The doctors told us that if he hadn't come when he did, he would not have survived, chas v'shalom. Under such circumstances, the difference between life and death, or health and irreversible damage, is literally a few minutes," he concluded.

I thought about the incredible hashgachah and rachmanus of Hashem, Who orchestrated the infection in Reb Lipa's leg in order to get him to the hospital in time to save his life from the true danger he was facing.