Anyone who knows 47-year-old Hila Erza from Kiryat Ata cannot imagine that the girl is suffering from a cancerous growth in a vertebra in her spine.
Erza is a generally healthy woman, who has been playing in a volleyball team in a professional league for about a decade and in recent years has also become a coach. The sport is part of her daily routine. Naturally, she thought that the back pain she had been suffering for the past year and a half was a result of too much sports activity or, alternatively, an incorrect movement she made during a game.
“As someone who refuses to take painkillers, I started doing medical massages and physical therapy, but the pain continued to accompany me to the point that before the games I would take a painkiller and go on the field,” says Erza.
Just about a month ago, she participated in Maccabiah as one of the players of the netball team and won third place. A few days later, she felt a sharp pain in her shoulder and thought to herself that she must have made a wrong move during the game.
After several days of pain and taking medication, the situation got worse and Erza realized that something was wrong. She felt that her legs were slowly weakening and the next morning she was no longer able to stand on her own. Her relatives, who saw her condition, forced her to go to the emergency room in her area of residence. There Hila was released to her home on the grounds that she needed to rest.
Erza did not give up and on the recommendation of her close friends, she sought advice from Dr. Eyal Barbalak, head of the first orthopedic department at the Hillel Yaffe Medical Center, when she was already in a wheelchair. Dr. Barbalak referred her for a CT scan that raised suspicions of an abnormal finding in the spine. She was immediately rushed for an MRI of the spine which confirmed the suspicion – lymphoma type cancer that developed into a tumor in the T4 vertebra of the spine. The next morning, Erza underwent a complex operation that lasted several hours, during which the vertebra was cut and the tumor was removed.
Dr. Eyal Barbelak, director of the first orthopedic department, who operated on Hila, noted: “This is a healthy woman, an athlete, whose life turned upside down one day. She came to us sitting in a wheelchair, unable to stand on her two legs. The imaging tests confirmed the suspicion that it is a tumor that sits on the spine. The operation was successful and a few days later Hila was able to stand on her feet.”
Now Hila is still hospitalized in the orthopedic ward surrounded by family and friends, and she faces another long rehabilitation process alongside chemotherapy treatments.
“I feel that I was very lucky. In my gut feeling I thought I had something and when I arrived at Hillel Yaffe, despite the bitter news, I knew I was in good hands. I thank all the medical, nursing and auxiliary staff, who treated me very professionally and showed me a warm attitude , headed by Dr. Barbelak who diagnosed the situation and operated on me quickly and with great dedication.
“A long road of rehabilitation and treatments are not easy yet, but with the help of my family and close friends who surround me all the time, I am sure I will get through it successfully.”