The beginning Awful prophecies Why? Hospitalization The Hematological Center Birds People Neighbors Nurses-twins Tsitozar Olya and Bubble The Hygiene of genitals Rescuers Transplantation This site

1.THE BEGINNING - "How are you going to celebrate New Year's eve?" - "I don't care about it. I'll just be sleeping" - "Well! You can't do that! " - "Why not? " - "Superstition... " - "I don't want anything. And I sleep all the time " - "It is necessary to perform a ritual, to be lucky". - "These are just conventions. It's a normal day, I've never considered it different." 2.AWFUL PROPHECIES The signs of the threat appeared long ago but we failed to recognise them, even though there were a lot. There was a time when Lesha liked to visit the site www.deathclock.com and to fill in the data to see how much he had left to live. And suddenly as in an anecdote there was written that he had 3 months left. 3.WHY? When such a thing happens everyone starts thinking it over to understand how obvious and reasonable everything was. People who are around feel vulnerable too. "No, he was leading towards this for a long time. He was leading himself or he was brought..." But it's not so simple, there's more than what meets the eye! 4.HOSPITAL Lesha was examined by doctors in the Pirogov Medical Centre; they confirmed the diagnosis and ordered to find a hospital. It sounded like: "We have run out of quota. Look for somebody who will treat you". What does this quota mean? What kind of quota do we need? But Lesha needs urgent treatment". Later we were told that they had just got rid of a seriously ill patient, with about 97% of blasts (cancer cells) in the bone marrow, with a suspect neuroleukemia. 5.The Hematological Center The Hematological Scientific Centre of Russian Academy of Medical Sciences is an old large building, submerged by the constant and continuous process of repairs. The territory is guarded by relaxed people, wearing a uniform and not completely fulfilling their duty. Their main task is to raise a barrier if cars drive to the hospital. Sometimes they ask: "Where are you going?". 6.Birds The building is made in the shape of a Russian letter P (П) and there is a tree with a crow nest in the garden. Several times a day the windows of the wards open and people throw their uneaten dinner. It's extra food for the local birds. There are a lot of them. The birds feel very comfortable on the territory of the hospital. There are only a few patients who eat the hospital food; that's why almost everything is given to the birds 7.People When a new sick person appears in the department, the corridors become full of weeping relatives, who run to and from phoning somebody or cry embracing on the benches. You remember yourself crying, phoning but now, one-two-six-eight months later you look at this with a bit of surprise 8.Neighbors In the department of chemotherapy for leukemia and pathology of erythron the patients are various. It's said that in the hematological centre there is a special department for patients with acute leukemia but there was no room. The patients are of all ages, from teenagers to elders, and of both sexes. 9.Nurses-twins We didn't start to distinguish the nurses at once, especially if they enter the ward in masks which hide half of their faces. Yet we immediately noticed that there were two nurses who looked alike. Actually, physically they are quite different, their hair is of different colors, their figures differ, but they enter the ward and start talking to you so jokingly. They have the same manners and the impressions after talking to them are very alike 10.Tsitozar When the first procedure of chemotherapy was starting Lesha planned to do millions of things: to write news for the blog of the department of journalism, a programme for an Internet radio station, to work on net video projects, to read Ulysses, to create art-books, to write scripts, etc. The plans were living in his brain full of blasts preventing him from sleeping peacefully 11.Olya and Bubble And who are Babble and Olya? Olya was a doctor treating Lesha during the first hospitalization. Olya had an official name and we used it but she was young and fresh and looked like a girl who always had excellent marks. In our childhood there always were girls in kindergartens or in schools who played doctors and teachers very well and very seriously but who still were nice little girls 12.The Hygiene of genitals There is one more person which is difficult not to mention. There is actually very little to say about him but still it's impossible not to say a few words. At first we thought that he was the director of the department. We even talked to him and were sure that he was the director. But we were mistaken 13. Rescuers Many people thought of how to save Lesha: His mother went to church and brought special books, icons, sprinkled holy water and fixed an icon of Saint Panteleimon on the wall. She begged to recite prayers before going to bed. 14.Transplantation From the very beginning we heard that there is such a thing as transplantation of bone marrow: it can treat leukemia. In hospital first of all they asked Lesha if he had a brother. Lesha was afraid that they would make a transplantation and hid the existence of his brother. But they laughed at him and said "We aren't suggesting transplantation yet". 15.This site 250 тысяч евро - это не шутка. Если продать квартиру, в которой Леша прописан с мамой и братом, у которого вот-вот родится второй ребенок, денег все равно не хватит. Квартиру решили конечно не продавать, а деньги искать где-нибудь еще. Но где?