Uninvented Stories of Invented People

Svetlana Isaenko

“The doctor on duty, open up.”

No sooner have I entered the department, when a screaming woman bumped into me.

“Birds of feather flock together,” runs through my head.

“You’ve destroyed my son. I will file a complaint against you, bustards, savages, whore heir!”

“Hello, hello, hello for a start! I am the doctor on duty and I am here to sort things out with your son’s condition. Calm down, please. We’ll fix him right away.”

“His voice is gone. He is dying and you are doing nothing.”

“If you let me pass, right now, I will take a very close look at your son and do my best to help him as quick as possible.”

“Stupid bitch.”

“Dear lady, could you be so kind and choose your words more carefully? There is a doctor in front of You, whom You are debarring the passage and, thereby, taking the time away from your son.”

I get in to the observation part. Shabby walls, concrete floors and absence of renovation, according to one version, are intended to stipulate patients’ motivation to accept the therapy prescribed and move to the care treatment unit as soon as possible. However, according to the other version, that phenomenon dwells upon the lack of state financing, or merely is a consequence of Pablo’s greed. There are about thirty huge guys, lying on wire mesh-based beds. Some are fixed, many hallucinating. In most cases, they are dressed in what kind people bring for charity or is given by the church.

The aid-man takes me to the patient.

It is a bloke of about twenty-five, standing and trampling from one foot to the other. His arms are elbow bent, clearly showing stiffness. His mouth is open and the tongue does not fit into, with saliva flowing out and down. His voice is hoarse …

“Well, this one is ‘stuffed’ well.”

“What’s his name?” I ask the nurse. “Kindly fetch me the case history and some water. Which drugs do you have in the department?”

“He is Misha. On my way,” the agitated young nurse runs to the nurse’s room.

“Michelle, dear, it will become better now, just take a pill and we give you two injections, and it will make you feel better.”

I do all the prescriptions, describe everything in the case history myself. I call for the nurse:

“Tell his mom to go to the drugstore and buy him the cheapest cough candies.”

“Yes, Mam.”

While in waiting of the drugs action I familiarize myself with the case history. Misha has been suffering a severe mental disorder since the age of nineteen. Repeated suicide attempts, ‘forced by voices’, is extremely resistant to the therapy. Now it is clear, why the medications doses are that huge. Poor boy. His condition improved after an hour.

“Michelle, how are you doing?”

Tears stream down from his eyes. He wipes them off by a dirty palm in a childish way and utters querulous:

“I want to hang myself, but they won’t let me do.” “Michelle, but are you feeling better already?” “Well, I can speak, but I want to hang myself.”

“Fine, let’s have a deal, you can hang yourself, but not on my shift, okay?” “Can I? Really? And when is it? After 20:00?”

“Yes, Michelle, and in the meantime, you will behave. Deal? Just this will be our little secret. Promises not to tell anybody?”

“Sure.”

I go into the nursing room and see frightened eyes of the nurse and the aid-men. I give explanations.

“You may take him out to his mom.” “Doctor, what should we do after?”

“You will tell him all the time that it is twenty minutes to eight. I have changed the therapy. His state should become better. Should it not, then sedate. I wrote everything on the treatment sheet. Strict supervision is a must! Keep an eye on him. Though, as you can see, we’ve fixed the voice and elevated the moods. He’s sitting and smiling.”

When I was leaving his mother grabbed my sleeve at the exit. “Were there the lollies, that helped?”

“Well, one could say so, I guess. This is the side effect of the drugs and, of course, Your kind concern.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” “Get well.”

I enter the sanitary inspection room. My feet are soaking wet and I already feel feverish because of cold and tension.

“The ambulance,” I hear Mariana from the far end of the inspection room. “What a day?!” What a Sunday…

The initial hospitalization patient is psychotic. It is the classics of genre, that may right away be shown to medical students. There are delusional ideas, paralogical thinking, incoherent speech and attentive listening to something in the air. Lost and clueless parents are making assumptions of that ‘this might have been caused by excessive computer gaming’. I try to calm them down and explain, but it’s all pointless. They are incapable to comprehend, yet.

“Your attending doctor will be here tomorrow, please come by 9.00 a.m. Before 9.00 a.m. there will be a daily briefing and a medical round. Do not worry.”

For some reason, almost all parents question the propriety of inpatient hospitalization decision at their child’s first psychosis. Everyone is lost and crying. When, in fact, it is the most correct thing to be done, because such actions will protect the kid from further disease development and disorder. However, after cutting the psychosis, at least 4 years of drug medication should be taken. Only then, it is possible that such thing will never happen again. Unfortunately, relatives themselves, in most cases, insist on drug medication abolition which in fact ruins their kids’ further life.

“Marina is there anything to bite or some sweet tea? I feel dizzy and see spots in front of my eyes. I haven’t eaten anything yet so far.”

“Shall we, probably, measure your blood pressure, you look kind of pale.” “We shall.”

We measure my pressure: It is 80 over 50. I see Marina’s worried look. “All right, no worries. I have no intention to have my obituary written like:

‘During the patient’s examination the doctor had suddenly turned pale and died.’ What will the patient do then?”

“Joking, ha? This ain’t good for nothing. Valera, bring tea and sweets, we’re gonna rescue the doctor. What if we inject some caffeine?”

“No, no, sweet tea will be just fine. Just got a bit tired.” “I can imagine.”

And there, in the middle of that dialogue, that very phone rings treacherously again. I twitch, everything grows cold inside. It is 18:00 just yet and still two more hours of work ahead. Only obscene words and expressions run into my head.

“Miss Clover, please proceed to the 29th right after you finish your tea. There is a high blood pressure patient there, but hurry not. If you decease now, there will be no one to save him.”