Kitobni o'qish: «Nine Days in June. The Restart»
Nine Days in June. The Restart.
Chronology of events.
June 1, 2025. Got up early in the morning. Felt slight dizziness. Twice lost consciousness for a few moments and fainted. The first time I thought it was just morning weakness, but the second fainting worried me, especially since I hit my head a little. I remembered that the other day I fell the same way, but hit myself harder and injured the back of my head. Such fainting had been bothering me for over a year, and I did not pay much attention to it, but this time I decided to call an ambulance.
The ambulance arrived quickly. Two medics examined me, considered my condition dangerous and suggested going to hospital. I agreed, since I had never fully regained consciousness. I did not even have the strength to call my loved ones on the phone and tell them that they were taking me to hospital.
Upon arrival at Buyanov Hospital, the medical staff there immediately started preparing me for surgery. I had a poor understanding of what they were going to do with me. They took away my phone and did not let me drink, eat, or get up from the hospital gurney.
After some time, I they took to an operating room. At some point, I realized that they were going to implant a pacemaker in me. I still do not know exactly what the correct medical diagnosis for my condition before the operation was. Later I understood that my heart was practically stopping and that it needed to be stimulated.
The operation was without general anesthesia and seemed to last forever. I was operated on under local anesthesia. I heard every rustle in the operating room and felt every movement of the surgeon's hand. Moreover, I heard all the conversations between the surgeon and the operating-room nurse. They were in alone in the room and chatted cheerfully during the operation.
From their conversations, I understood that this was the first independent operation of the young surgeon, who outwardly reminded me of a migrant worker from a southern former Soviet Union republic. He was very proud of his first unsupervised surgery and turned to the nurse for admiration and she approvingly played along. I was losing my patience and asked the surgeon a few times: “How much longer? Will the operation be over soon?” In response, he answered knowingly: “I do not know.” Either he really did not know, or he was really so carried away by the surgery that he did not even want to finish it. I was close to nervous breakdown when I began to smell burnt flesh. Here the surgeon turned to me for the first time with the remark: “Your vessels are very tortuous.” I did not get what he meant, but later I understood. It turns out that, in order to pass electrodes from the pacemaker to the heart through the blood vessels, the electrodes are heated up and then pushed to the heart, burning the vessels from the inside. So I realized that this burning smell was coming from my vessels. I almost begged: "I can't stand it anymore." The surgeon was genuinely surprised and asked: "Is it true that you fainted twice today?" – "Yes." – "And have you had a number of such fainting spells this week?" – "Yes." – "And after this, you do not want to endure the operation?" – "I can't stand it anymore." He was surprised, as if saying: "well, well" and continued the surgery in science.
Finally, the execution was over. Judging by the timekeeping, it lasted more than 4 hours, from 12:17 p.m. to 16:25 p.m. The surgeon, pleased with himself, asked me: "Well, how did you like the surgery?" I answered: "It was terrible." He did not understand the farce, since he was preoccupied with himself during the entire operation. Or maybe he considered me a freeloader who did not appreciate free treatment at the expense of the compulsory medical insurance. According to my electronic medical record, the pacemaker implantation cost the state 351,328 rubles 78 kopecks (circ. USD 4,300).
They took me to the intensive care unit, and the next day I transferred me to a general ward. I stayed there for another night, and the next morning, on June 3, they gave me my belongings and my phone and said that I was being discharged that day. The phone battery was flat and I was unable to charge it, but the nurse, who accompanied me, called me a Yandex Taxi and sent me home. Later, I saw in my mobile banking app that I had somehow managed to pay for the taxi, using my phone.
I remember the way home vaguely. My phone probably was dead. It was the third day since I had disappeared from radar screens. I could not call my loved ones and tell them where I had been for three days. We drove, as I remember, for a very long time. The taxi driver kept getting confused, lost his way several times, stopped at McDonald's drive-in for coffee. Finally, I arrived home. Somehow, my taxi ride had been paid for. The last thing I remember, I was opening the entrance door to my apartment.
What happened to me during the next nine days, from June 3 to June 11, I can reconstruct very vaguely. The days flew by. Now I can count the days that went by. At that time, I was in another dimension. Apparently, upon entering the apartment, I immediately lost consciousness and fainted. Most likely, the front door remained unlocked all those days. They were looking for me, but the phone wad dead and they could not find me.
I remember most clearly only the following. I was lying on my bed in my bedroom for a while. I remember being thirsty and somehow making my way to the kitchen and pouring myself some water from a 5-gallon hand-pumped drinking water bottle. I remember not being able to find a glass and pouring the water into an empty glass jar. I also remember seeing my favorite four posters of the Beatles on the wall in my bedroom. That was it.
I woke up on the ninth day, June 11, lying on the floor in front of the couch. The couch cushions were scattered on the floor. I realized that I was home and that I needed to take a shower and change my clothes. Somehow, I did that and realized that I lost my phone and my eyeglasses. I only found a wallet with a credit card and decided that I needed to somehow call my loved ones, and to do this I needed to go to a shopping center, buy a push-button phone and get a new SIM card at the mobile operator's office. Everything else was erased from my memory. I forgot that I was in the hospital, that I had heart surgery and that I had a pacemaker implanted. I did not remember any of this. It was temporary amnesia. All I needed was to somehow be able to call.
I left the apartment and went into the hallway, where my neighbor, concierge Igor, saw me. He realized by my appearance that something was wrong with me. “Where are you going?” – “To the Kaluzhsky shopping center.” – “Why?” – “To get a new SIM card and a phone. I lost my phone.” – “Look at yourself. You can barely walk! Do you need to call?” – “Yes.” Igor took out his phone, but I could not remember a single phone number. In fact, I have never known a single number by heart. Somehow, I found at home a printout of my friends’ contact numbers. We had a hard time finding one familiar name. We could not find my son Misha’s number or his mother’s number. We only found his grandmother’s number, and I told her that I was alive.
Then Igor came into my apartment, found my phone, its charger and my eyeglasses. This was my salvation. We put the phone on charge, I said goodbye to Igor and gradually began to come into myself.
The first thing I did when my phone came to life was to call the grocery delivery service from the VkusVill online store and order Agusha yogurt for kids (I do not know why, I have never bought Agusha before) with a bun. Apparently, my hungry self was demanding its due. They delivered my order. I drank the yogurt and only took a bite of the bun. I did not even have the strength to chew. I did not recognize anything in my apartment. I could not find my desktop computer. I could not put the cushions on the coach so that this time I would not sleep on the floor.
Then a brilliant idea came to me. I decided to book a room at the nearest Radisson Hotel and move there tomorrow. I could not stay in my apartment. A cleaning crew had to be called here to tidy it up. Using an app on my phone (my smartphone was my savior) I booked a room at the Radisson Leninsky Prospect Hotel on the corner of Leninsky Avenue and Kravchenko Street (my favorite corner of Moscow since my school years), warning them that I needed a wheelchair to move around the hotel. I knew I would not be able to walk on my own.
Still not fully conscious, I decided to go to bed. I finally found my desktop computer, but I could not start it. I forgot the password to log in. I still could not put the coach cushions on the coach. I decided to sleep on them on the floor. I felt generally weak and tired, and I did not care where I went to sleep. I slept poorly. Morning came, June 12. Having waited until dawn, I got up and ordered Agusha from VkusVill again. I did not want anything else. Since then, I order this yogurt every day. Around 11 a.m., I decided that I could call a taxi and go to the hotel. I moved with difficulty, holding on to the wall with my hand.I felt dizzy. I called a comfort class taxi to make it easier to get in and out of the car and arrived at the hotel. They met me with a wheelchair and took me up to my room on my floor. I left the wheelchair in the room, just in case. It was necessary arrange cleaning of my apartment. The hotel concierge gave me the contacts of two cleaning companies. One of them agreed to clean the apartment. The cleaning, in the end, turned into a facelift, replacing bed linen and towels, and lasted for a week.
In my hotel room, I just wanted to relax and rest in comfort for at least a day. Finally, I got it. Having ordered a fruit plate and soft drinks to my room and having turned on the TV, I finally relaxed on a soft bed. Tired by the evening, I went to bed. My sleep was shallow and superficial. In the morning, I realized that the hotel alone would not save me from my weakness. I needed to consult a physician and find out what was happening to me. After having breakfast in my room, I called an ambulance. A paramedic arrived, did an electrocardiogram, and asked about my pacemaker. Then I remembered that I had a pacemaker implanted in hospital and asked if the surgery could have had the consequences as I had. The paramedic said, "Yes." – "What should I do now?" – "Nothing, everything is fine." – "And I do not need to go to hospital?" – "No." At this point, I became tense. I said, "I can hardly walk, I feel dizzy." – "Well, you managed to get out of bed and opened the door for me." – "I walked along the wall, holding on with my hand. I can't move without a gurney." – "They'll check you up at the hospital and send you home." – "Let's try." The paramedic reluctantly agreed.
I have to give credit to the Radisson Hotel. Upon arrival, I paid 46,000 rubles (circ. USD 565) for one night, of which 30,000 rubles (circ. USD 365) the hotel returned to me as their sympathy compensation upon checkout.
At Vinogradov Hospital, they examined me in the emergency room and immediately sent to intensive care unit. But even there I did not remember everything and did not tell about everything that happened to me after the surgery, when during the initial checkup they asked me what was that scar I had in my left shoulder, and what kind of bruises were on my left arm. Consciousness was returning gradually.
In intensive care unit, they put a huge intravenous drip vessel on me for 4 hours. In general, in Vinogradov Hospital, they put intravenous drips on me every day, sometimes even twice a day. Apparently, different solutions. That was basically all my treatment consisted of.
The next day, after intensive care, they transferred me to a general ward. They gave me back my phone, which they dad taken away from me upon admission. On the second day, they allowed me to get up. The smartphone saved me again. I woke up early, sometimes did not sleep at all at night, and in the morning I ordered fruits, berries, and fruit drinks from VkusVill. They delivered the order to the checkpoint at the hospital gate, and the next day I went of the ward to the gate to take the delivered groceries myself. These were my first outings in two weeks after the operation. Badly, timidly, but I was already walking on my own.
A lot has flown past me in those two weeks. For two weeks, I did not have a toothbrush, and I did not brush my teeth, I walked around in the same white sweatshirt, which had already turned grey. Consciousness was gradually restored, and with it came the realization of what I had experienced in these two weeks.
In fact, in the end, there were many positive things about it. Before the surgery, I had terrible hand tremors: I could barely type on the computer keyboard, and I could not sign an official document at all. Now, there was no tremors at all. Before the surgery, I was constantly taking my treatment regimen of two dozen tablets a day. I have not taken them for two weeks now, and I feel great. My digestion improved, and most importantly, I was in a great mood and had excellent performance. I slept little, worked a lot on the phone, and I had to communicate frequently with the senior cleaner in my apartment and coordinate the work of the cleaners. I started going out-of-doors every day and taking short walks. The dizziness gradually went away.
I could not understand one thing: why all the muscles in my body hurt so much. It felt like they beat me with a stick. Only later did I understand that those were the consequences of sleeping on the bare floor. Then the body apparently felt nothing, and it did not care where to sleep. If that can be called sleep. I still do not understand what physical state my body was in.
A week later I was discharged from Vinogradov Hospital. I came home to a clean and renovated apartment, changed clothes, and started my desktop computer. Life was getting better, although my body still ached, but, after a while, the pain passed.
After being discharged, I was seriously tense twice. The feeling of reality of what was happening disappeared. Or rather, the opposite. My hallucinations were perceived as reality. In the first such instance, I clearly realized that all that was happening was reality. The second vision repeated a day later and luckily never returned.
Three month have passed since the surgery. I am in a great mood now, my ability to work is high, I feel great, and every day brings me only joy and happiness. I think that is why the Lord saved my life, because the chances of surviving 9 days, alone in an empty apartment, unconscious, were very small. So, for some reason, the Lord still need in this world. My life now is such that if I do not do something today, there is a high probability that I will never do it, and I have long since stopped paying attention to mosquito bites.
Glory to God for everything!
