“Miss Clover there is a cardiac standstill in the Intensive Care! It’s urgent!” I hear one of our nurses crying from the other part of the medical checkpoint. I run out in one second and quickly head across the street and then to the third floor. Doorbell. The aid-man looks at me through the wicket. I clearly enunciate my words: “The doctor on duty, open up.” No hesitation possible, someone’s life has stopped. I rush into the intensive care unit and there the one is better than the other. The gentleman of around 50 lived his life brightly, drank heavily, though shoddily, therefore, the body has taken the decision to break ties with that unbridled joy. I start implementing resuscitation measures. “Adrenaline … 2.0. More … is dopamine done? … great … dexamethasone 4.0 … Live, start on, dear, come on … please, not at my duty shift.” After some time, the arteries begin to pulsate under my arms. “I’ve started him on”. The hands are shaking. The sweat is streaming. I fought for life. We managed to regain another one from the death. Although, was it really necessary? There, we are just the tools that possess certain knowledge and, then, the Universe is to take the final decision.

“Guys, can I have some water, please?”

“Sure, doctor, you are a Fury yourself, flew in and almost swept me off my feet,” the aid-man comments.

“Seems what they say is truth. We have a private joke that when you are on duty, you would not let anyone die, even if someone really wanted to!”

“Well, thank you. I appreciate your kind words!”

I am waiting for him to fetch me water and witnessing a picture.

There is one of our patients, lying down in alcoholic delirium, the ailment that people call 'the Blue Devils'. It takes place when one drinks vodka or homebrew booze steadily and heavily, or sips whiskey for quite a period of time, drinks oneself to death. The metabolism changes and, as soon as one stops drinking, the delirium develops the third day after. And there he is, our guy, extremely agitated, fixed (tied to the bed), hallucinating into the ceiling and imagining war.

“Shoot, you bitch, shoot… tanks… attack… fight off… ammos!!!! Fire!!!” While in front of him, there sits an Afroamerican chap, whose delirium has already passed. He sits on the edge of his bed with his head down, thinking of something to his own. The local one tears his gaze off the ceiling, stops twitching his arms and legs, turns to the Afroamerican and asks with complete surprise and indignation:

“Misha, did you paint yourself black or what!?”

The entire staff bursts out laughing. The Afroamerican is protesting with a thick accent:

“Why is he calling me Misha?”

And this actually adds more to the cuteness. “That’s it guys! Let me go. I am to rescue further…”

“Well, whatever ever, come along”, the aid-man replies in an old soviet cartoon ‘Once there lived a dog’ style, in a low woolly voice, “the resuscitator is anyways off today.”

“What does it mean, off?”

“Means, no one’s willing to work,” the aid-man shrugged his shoulders.

It is only in our country, that you don’t find a resuscitator medic in the intensive care unit. Whereas, a psychiatrist solves the issue by everything found in touch, like hands, breathing bags, brain and pain, since no drugs are available. For one injection of Seduxen, first of all, you are obliged to fill- out five-volumes of paper and no way other. And don’t you even dare not to “start up the engine”! You’re gonna encounter all the music from Pablo. Who cares that you are a psychiatrist and not a resuscitator? "Positive statistics is of the utmost importance."

Hands are shaking a bit. Heart’s beating. “We’ll get through this,” like my granny used to say. No sooner have I reached the checkpoint, when saw an ambulance on its way into.

“Holy shit,” sounds encouraging in my head.

A woman of about forty is accompanied by two mature aid-men. I run to the office. My beloved Marina is on duty with me. With her blue eye shades, gorgeous bosom and curves, and a bouffant over the head, she always exudes optimism and safety. She will always stand up for me when needed.

Ambulances often palm off specific patients. I don’t blame them, since it’s their cup of tea. Nevertheless, she is the one you can rely on, as Marina will always stand by you and help to fight off any trouble. Which, of course, are multiple.

There enters the whole ambulance squad and the patient. She is of a very nauseous unpleasant smell. Her eyes look scared. She is listening to something all the time, constantly crying and hiding her face behind her hands. She is extremely thin and exhausted. Her clothes hang loose. Lips are dry.

“Hello, what has happened with us?” I begin cheerfully.

The patient closes her ears and starts mumbling something similar to a prayer. No respond to questions. Due to severity of her mental state, she is unavailable to contact. I see, psychotic disorder, voices in the head. Dear girl.

“Miss Clover, this is our long-time patient. She has been receiving re- treatment with us several times. She is of the second a disability group, dwells with her eighty-year-old mother. She hasn’t been taken therapy for a long time.” About a month ago her mother died. It was cold outside. Therefore, the neighbors did not notice it at once. When the smell appeared, they called for police, thought there was no one in the apartment. No one answered the doorbell or knocking. They broke the door, went in and there was the dead mother and her daughter, lying on top of her mother. She was trying to feed her dead mother and take her to bed and to bathe her. In one word, when they tried to take her away, the patient resisted extremely, constantly repeating: “Mom, Mommy.” Apparently, she hasn’t eaten for a long time as well.

“Horrible. Blood pressure?” “It’s 70 over 40.”

“Well, what about the district, which department does she go to accordingly?”

“To seventeenth,” says Marina with a compassion.

“Call the department,” I command. “Let us examine her and she needs a bath.”

“Consider it’s done,” Marina responds.

I briefly fill in the clinical record. Severe cachexia. Into the treatment sheet, with caution, I write in lots of glucose, vitamins, heart supporting drugs and neuroleptics. I fear to reduce blood pressure, since she is already so weak. With the diagnosis of ‘paranoid schizophrenia of continuous flow, recurrence’, I’m sending her to the department.

I bid adieu to the ambulance. A terrible sound of the old local rotary telephone rings out. That is the one attached to the wall by a helicoid cord. This cannot be mistaken to anything. Every time it calls, it means trouble. I feel like sometime later this old telephone from 1940’s will regularly torment me in my nightmares.

I pick it up and hear on the other end of the line:

“It’s the nurse on duty from the 8th female department. One of our grannies is bad.”

“What’s there?” “She’s unconscious…” “Pressure?”

“It’s 40 over 0.”

“Oh, fuck,” I toss the receiver and pull on my down parka on-the-go. I cry to Valera, the aid-man: “Run!”

Snowdrifts are knee-deep, sweat flows an unpleasant stream down my back. I shout at the nurses:

“Couldn’t clean up the snow?” I rush into the ward.

A woman of about ninety’s lying down in the middle of the canteen, unconscious. No artery pulse is audible. I hit a precordial punch and scream for the entire life-saving cocktail to be injected immediately. After a couple of minutes, the patient comes to her senses. She opens her eyes and very deliberately, by weak, hard labor and ailment crumpled hands, pushes away mine and says:

“You, leave me alone!”

“Sorry, dear, but I’m not letting you go to the better world yet, not at my shift.”

I go outside and light a cigarette. Valera is with me.