"When we exist,
death is not yet present
when death is present
we do not exist "

Epicurus

Marina was brought to the emergency department barely conscious. Intolerable pain distorted the features of her face beyond recognition, and mauve circles blossomed under her eyes. Fingers clutched at the edges of the iron gurney so that the phalanges turned white. The woman came to us for the third time, and again on my shift. I pushed the sheets down and looked at the young and emaciated and exhausted by the disease. This time the skin was flabby, pigmented all over, the features of the face sharpened. She moaned at my slightest touch and said nothing. But I already knew everything about her illness.

- Marina, do you remember me? This is me, Natalya Vladimirovna. Last time I was your doctor. Do you remember me?

- Yes I remember. Do something. The head is about to explode in pain.

I called the nurse and immediately prescribed a double dose of pain medication. And without a survey it was clear that the process had gone too far. No aggressive chemotherapy will help here. And even though she arrived in a planned manner, it was impossible to send her back under outpatient monitoring.

- Everything will be fine - I gently put my hand over her palm - now they will make an injection and the pain will pass. I will put you in the ward under my supervision. Tomorrow will be a survey. Well, and then we decide on treatment.

- Doctor, probably already late. Make it so that I do not suffer.

- Stop the nonsense grind. Six months ago, you left here on your feet. This time will be the same.

She said nothing. I assigned her to the ward and prescribed infusion therapy. Tomorrow we will understand. Maybe something else can be done.

Three days later, the examination was completed. The result did not please me. Multiple metastases penetrated everywhere and Marina had very little time left. The head ordered to prepare the documents for discharge.

- Pavel Georgievich, I want to try chemotherapy in combination with a short-range gamma therapy. In some cases, it gives the effect. After all, she still has no forty - I tried to argue.

- Late, Natasha, late. Believe my experience. You will help her only when you leave her alone. Do not torture yourself and her. Tomorrow is on an extract. All she needs now is adequate pain relief. How is she now?

- Sits all the time at the window, and writes something there. While stable. She is now on morphine.

- Well, fine. Write out tomorrow.

As usual, the next morning I did a detour around my patients. Marina was sleeping in her ward, and I did not bother her. The next dose of painkiller acted, and she quietly fell asleep. Let him sleep enough. Far from dinner, and the discharge documents are not yet ready. Going to leave, I saw a thin notebook fall out from under the sheets. I picked it up and leafed through it. It was a diary. She led him every day. Realizing that I was not doing well, I hid it in the folder with the documentation and took it with me to the staffroom room. Before the change, it was more than two hours, and I began to read pages written in even female handwriting.

“I am slowly fading away, but you are not near me. I was told that you called and was interested in my condition. But you did not say anything. I did not allow anyone to tell you anything about me. Then you came. You said that you miss me, and you wait, you will not wait, when I recover. And again, as before, we will live happily. We will go to the seas, and all your holidays will indulge in lovemaking. Everything will be as before. I pretended to be asleep and did not react at all. Because it was a lie. From you carried thick fumes and cheap cigarettes. It was clear that you had a good night at night. What did you come for? To make sure I'm still alive? Maybe your conscience finally woke up? Hardly. When you finally left, I was relieved ...

I'm slowly fading away. But you are never with me. You are constantly finding reasons to get rid of me somewhere.Party games and spit nicks - that's all you need. And you never have enough time for me. Probably you think that I can cope with my illness myself. But my strength is gone.

I'm slowly fading away. Everyone around me cheers, calms me and wishes me a speedy recovery. My colleagues come to me several times a day and the authorities close their eyes to this. They are bags of twig for me all sorts of delicacies and almost force-fed from a spoon. Neighbors and acquaintances come to me and spend a long time on duty near my bed. Only you are not among them. I have long understood that you no longer need. But tell me this in the eye you do not have enough courage. You prefer to lie and dodge.

I'm slowly fading away. Someone from your acquaintances told me that he saw you in a cheap pub in the company of two vulgar girls, who apparently didn’t even have twenty. You drank with them, and each took turns and said, “I’m changing one forties to two and twenty.” Then you left with them.

I slowly fade away and feel the end approaching. I'm scared. I do not know if there will be anything after this end. Or nothing. I just will not. And at night I count my pulse. If he is, then he is still alive.

I slowly fade away and for some reason continue to cling to life, which brings nothing but unbearable torment. Why? I do not know that. Probably, this is how the world works, and we are not given to know about it. For some reason, my cat Vaska, who was moved by a car four years ago, has come to me lately at night, and he was dying on my hands. How I wanted to save him. Where not only drove. But everything was in vain, he died, and I buried him at the end of the garden under a weeping willow.

I slowly fade away and constantly look out the window. There, outside, life goes on as usual, and when I am gone, nothing will change. I know that I have no chance now. If it were possible to wind it back a little bit, then I would change my way of life, not self-medicating, and I would take up my health seriously, and not at the very last moment.

I am slowly fading away, and all the time I am waiting for you against all odds. I do not want to believe in gossip and evil tongues. I expect you to come and your voice, as it once was long sincere. Perhaps this will give me new strength and hope. But you never appeared again. ”

I finished reading the pages when a nurse ran into the staffroom room.

- Natalya Vladimirovna! Vladova is dead. I came to put her reamberin, but she does not breathe.

“I’m running,” I said, and having hidden the diary in a drawer, I rushed into the ward.

She lay in a calm posture and her face was reflected in peace. Pulse on the cold hands was not. Marina died quietly in a dream, without pain. She left at dawn with the rising of the first rays of the spring sun. I stood at the window of the large ordinatorial room and looked down. Her body, covered with a thick sheet of head, was taken out on a gurney from the ward and rolled to the side of the morgue through the picturesque hospital patio of the oncologic dispensary. Only a strand of thick brown hair was knocked out from under the sheet and moved in the wind. Turning away, I sat down at the table and began to read the pages of the diary of the untimely left Marina. Soon change. It is necessary to catch the morning bus, arrive early, and how to sleep. Today again at night. Sorry for Marina. Quite young yet. For three years she fought, and at the very last moment I managed to stop the disease, force her to retreat. But the disease has won. People have not yet learned how to effectively resist this damned oncology.

Almost fifteen years have passed since then. Much has changed. New technologies have appeared, and pharmacology does not stand still. Science is moving forward, and cancer patients are treated more successfully. But the diary of a departed woman I keep to this day. I often re-read the pages that have turned yellow from time and think - and what will I feel myself when my time comes?

The story is dedicated to Anna, a medical assistant of the visiting team of substation No. 2 of emergency medical service, who worked selflessly for 11 years and saved many human lives in her short life.

ARHIMED