Андреева Ж. (en)

I want to express my deep grat­i­tude to the onco­colo­proc­tol­ogy depart­ment where I had an oper­a­tion. It does not smell like a hos­pi­tal! Here, even on the faces of peo­ple who, after an oper­a­tion, bare­ly move their feet, there is no expres­sion of inescapable suf­fer­ing. They love life and work for life here!

My doc­tor Savanovich Nina Vik­torov­na needs a sep­a­rate men­tion­ing. She deserves not a brief review but a seri­ous essay. Nina Vik­torov­na seems quite young. And the first thing that comes to mind is: «God! So frag­ile, so beau­ti­ful! What is she doing here, in this refuge of pain, suf­fer­ing, in this field of strug­gle with the inevitable?» But this is only until you become her patient. I do not want to say «patient» because you meet pri­mar­i­ly with the eyes of a human. They look at you not as an organ sen­tenced to resec­tion, an inter­est­ing case for a sur­geon, but as a close mate. You imme­di­ate­ly find your­self under guardian­ship, you are treat­ed kind­ly, respect­ful­ly by encour­ag­ing eyes of a sis­ter, a daugh­ter, a grand­daugh­ter, a girl­friend. They make pre­scrip­tions to you, explain in acces­si­ble lan­guage what will hap­pen to your body in the course of treat­ment, patient­ly answer ques­tions from rel­a­tives, friends, and even draw for clar­i­ty. You are allowed to com­plain, to be a lit­tle whim­sy — the doc­tor’s response is always com­pas­sion­ate and effec­tive. You feel pres­sure in your chest — she is call­ing a car­di­ol­o­gist; intesti­nal prob­lems, stitch­es are aching — she will sort this out. And the next thing you see: the car­di­ol­o­gist is already here and lis­ten­ing, the nurse on duty makes an injec­tion .… And the next morn­ing a snow white, smelling of spring, sun­ny Nina Vik­torov­na will flut­ter into the ward. And anx­i­ety gives way to con­fi­dence — Nina Vik­torov­na will do every­thing in her pow­er to save, and in hope­less cas­es, pro­long life, with­out caus­ing unnec­es­sary pain, nei­ther phys­i­cal nor mental.