Lonely fight

Even if the best doctors fight for you, it's still your lonely fight

Inner rebellion

I am a professional photographer. As a photorepector visited Afghanistan, North Korea, Antarctica, Iraq, Africa, shot, flying in a balloon at night, during an expedition in Karakum, shot in prisons, hospitals, monasteries ... Now I am engaged in industrial photography and also go a lot. I love photography - an event shot at several stages, or the story of an individual person who finds himself in the center of a dramatic event.

One of my photography took up a whole year. The then Absolute World Gymnastics Champion Dmitry Biloserchev crashed in a car accident. While driving, he lost control, and the car crashed into a pillar. An open multi-horned fracture of the lower leg-doctors counted 28 damage in Dima and came to the conclusion that amputation was inevitable, but still decided to try to save the leg.

Doctors hoped that Dmitry could walk, albeit with a wand. And he wanted to return. And he returned. Bilozerchev became the Olympic champion in Seoul, but for now I went to this, I shot it . Here is an operation, but Dima makes a rack on the hands between the backs of two hospital beds. One leg is very thin. And here he is in the gym on the rings, with the apparatus of Ilizarov on the leg. I took off my emotions, but I could not imagine what lies behind them: what pain, what attacks of despair, what a fist clenched in a fist.

Now I think that people do not get used to hard life, to hardships, losses and trials. They do not humble. Humility is unnatural for life, it begins to devour it, it is a medical fact. Need an internal riot. No matter how much you have strong assistants, even if the best doctors fight for you, this is still your lonely fight. People know little about this and often say all nonsense. Until their turn comes.

My turn

The diagnosis of Cancer does not just change plans. He kills them all at once the photo: Evgeny Stetsko

My turn came when in January this year I suddenly diagnosed lung cancer. I felt healthy, I didn’t smoke for the third year, I moved from one photo project to another. Just a little cold during the night shooting, and the doctor of the clinic, a young girl, purely formally directed to fluorography. When an ambulance arrived, I thought what to do with a car parked at the clinic. Autumn ended. The Botkin hospital said: yes you have ordinary chronic bronchitis, treat at home - and let go. It was night, the emergency room was full of various sufferers. One patient was brought in handcuffs, accompanied by police officers. Now I wonder: did they see something on the X-ray or not?

So my story began.

Chemotherapy is the first stage of treatment in my case. This is called "neoadjuvant therapy" photo: Evgeny Stetsko

Oncology does not change life plans. She kills them. All at once. And, most importantly, you really do not know anything. Fight. I now perceive this phrase of the doctor from the oncology dispensary as a banal vulgarity. Everything will be fine . Those who tell you so do not think about you. But they are friends, sincerely try, think that it is necessary. Then they will call: well, how are you? Are you holding on? Well done. Fight. And they also like to spread this news to unfamiliar people. The reason is incomprehensible to me. This takes away strength. Therefore, I reduced to a minimum the number of those who were in the know. Sister called home. And he is on a business trip, somewhere in the taiga, he does not take the phone there. And I got to the 62nd oncological hospital in Krasnogorsk near Moscow. The surgeon, who informed me of the confirmed diagnosis, said an amazing thing.

Hair during chemotherapy will most likely fall out. In the hospital, I saw people who lost them on the go. I decided to cut my hair in advance photo: Evgeny Stetsko

He said: take it very seriously. I understand. This was the instruction for me personally for the entire coming period. Then I remembered Dmitry Biloserchev.

Radical solution

I decided to shoot myself. Preparing for hospitalization, I thought what equipment to take with you to do without assistants (tripod, cable, remote control radio guns and laptop to observe the frame). I did not know exactly what I have to do and how many stages of treatment would have to go through.

Chemotherapy is divided into several courses. The farther, the more side effects of the photo: Evgeny Stetsko

And I had to go through everything.

The doctor of the chemotherapy department allowed the shooting: okay, remove, at least get distracted. It was already winter, outside the windows of the former post -war sanatorium for the military leaders, a total snowstorm fell with flakes. Of course, distracting from chemotherapy, especially its side effects, is almost impossible. But I needed to make several frames of this stage. I tried. Only blood indicators were worse.

I was a bald, thin and tired on the third step. All the time I wanted to hide under the water photo: Evgeny Stetsko

In the Chamber of Chemotherapy, I met the first amazing people - optimists. And then everywhere - in chemotherapy, and in surgery, and in the radiology, where I crossed the stages of therapeutic protocols - I have met many patients who not only believe in a prosperous outcome of treatment - they are absolutely sure of that. Perhaps this is the property of the 62nd hospital, its spirit and aura.

Reduced immunity - the risk of picking up any infection photo: Evgeny Stetsko

... At first, chemotherapy did not give results. The tumor was supposed to decrease to the size that allow the operation. But it did not decrease, and blood indicators were reduced. Then the all -bulky consultation decided to stop therapy, let me go home and make a test scan after three weeks. I was a bald, thin and got tired already on the third staircase. I did some kind of shooting and barely got home. Fell at home. All the time I wanted to hide under the water. But I still sat - I dealt with the hospital. And he tried not to think about how to deal with me now.

Pat CT is the most modern way to detect cancer cells photo: Evgeny Stetsko

Three weeks later, it turned out that the tumor literally collapsed, almost half. Such, infrequent, miracle. And then they quickly began to prepare me for the operation.

After the operation, I tried to follow all the requirements to develop the lung. Inhalation, oxygen. Breathe in a special "toy" photo: Evgeny Stetsko

The operation was complex, long, risky and heavy. But she was a success: she was carried out, fortunately, “radically for the tumor”, and not for the lung, which could be removed as a whole. Doctors made complex decisions right during the operation, responsibly went to the risk. It is difficult for me to imagine the entire degree of their tension. He operated on the head of the department, assisted two young doctors. I was told that they came from the operating room all wet.

Their

The seam did not heal the photo for a long time: Evgeny Stetsko

I tried and followed all the requirements. Inhalation, oxygen. I walked a lot in the park, as they ordered. Breathe in a special "toy" to develop a lung. “That's what it means - to want to recover,” the manager exclaimed at the round.

I invented how to remove the next frame.

I was assigned 25 sessions of radiation therapy photo: Evgeny Stetsko

The hospital has an order for patients: it is up to drink alcohol, smoke, swim in the fountain, feed dogs and birds. The seam did not heal for a long time. It was bad because the next stage was moving away. Then a vacuum machine was assigned to him, a recent German invention. She buzzed like a bee all the time. Then a month of radiation therapy began - they decided to undergo radiation of the operation zone and the lymph nodes closest to it for more confidence .

It seems that you are inside the space station photo: Evgeny Stetsko

All this time I shot.

The process of radiotherapy is controlled by a computer. This allows you to make irradiation more accurate, save healthy organs near the photo: Evgeny Stetsko

The workers cleaned the basin of the old fountain between the main and surgical buildings of winter garbage, painted in blue, turned on and launched fish into it ... In August, wasps, lovers of chocolate and coffee in paper glasses in the hands of patients on benches. They still like to fly into the open windows of the chambers, smell the jam that they bring to patients. I was discharged on August 17.

Now I sometimes peer into the faces of people, trying to guess in the expression of my face.

This is me now photo: Evgeny Stetsko

PS

A poster hung in the Soviet factory passage: “Thank you for honest labor!”

So I say: thank you, Yuri Vladimirovich Maksimchuk, Oksana Ivanovna Gudimova, Mikhail Ivanovich Popov, Pyotr Alekseevich Dryal, Tatyana Mikhailovna Zhuravleva, Larisa Alekseevna Jacobson, Marina Yuryevna Shililova.

Medicine oncology