Dr. Katya and caterpillar

Dr. Katya sleeps calmly one night a week. Six other nights pouring life into Katya: the doctor gives part to his patients, and some are spending on the fight against the indifference of the system. And so for seven years

Help the wind of hopes to help

Scars like hieroglyphs

Dr. Anisimova’s house is clean, almost sterile - washed floors, patented white cabinets and grated mirrors. The room has a device for disinfecting air. In the hallway, the glossy cat Jupiter is dubious. On the walls in several rows, plates hang from different parts of the world.

- Do you travel so much? - I move from shoes to guest slippers.

- No, unfortunately. To go somewhere, you need to drag three suitcases with equipment and medicines. Yes, and not very much with money. Everything goes to intravenous nutrition. Friends give plates, as a keepsake.

Katya is 37 years old, she has very thin, almost transparent hands and tired eyes. When it leans, it is clear that its chest is excited by scars. They, like Chinese hieroglyphs, talk about the doctor’s life more than she herself. Above Katya’s heart, a dark tubercle is a titanium port implanted under the skin. Dr. Anisimova introduces needles into it - puts a dropper with a nutrient solution.

“I can only eat for pleasure, proteins, fats and carbohydrates, my body does not absorb in a straight way,” Katya brews coffee, the cup in her hand trembles. - I have SKK - a short intestine syndrome. After several operations, half remained from the large intestine, and 55 centimeters instead of 5-7 meters from the small intestine. I wonder how I survived. Probably, for some reason is needed, since they hold me on this earth.

Ekaterina in the center of Aksaya photo: Alina Tratnikhenko for TD

The first time Katya Anisimova fell on the operating table at 13 years old. Acute appendicitis ended with peritonitis. The girl was operated on, but something went wrong-I had to cut and clean again.

“People were prescribed, new came, and I all lay and could not understand what to do so as not to feel this constant pain. Then I decided that I would become a doctor ... "

When Katya was discharged from the hospital, on her stomach he began to slowly ripen a keloid scar as a fat summer caterpillar. The scar became the center of Katya - an axis on which all subsequent events were strung. He pulled the girl, bend her spine. Katya began to walk softly and slowly, tried not to disturb him once again.

Over the years, Katya and the caterpillar have taken off. Together we graduated from school, entered the Medical Institute. And in the third year, when the girl needed a simple gynecological operation, it turned out that all these years the caterpillar did not doze, clung to her toxic paws by Katin's stomach from the inside - spikes formed in the peritoneum. The gynecologist surgeon barely reached the right organ. And a few years later, Katya removed part of the small intestine.

- They motivated the fact that the outer layer of the intestine exfoliated and the fistulas could continue - the holes through which the food would fall into the abdominal cavity. It is difficult for me to judge how justified these actions were. I was upset, of course, but it was not fatal. I was going to live and work on.

There is no joy or pain

Ekaterina Anisimova is a therapist and a cardiologist in the railway hospital of the city of Bataisk, the Rostov region. Patients love her for soft character and humanity. Therefore, they are treating a variety of questions.

- I always advise them: before you go to the operation, even the simplest, go around three specialists. If their opinions coincide, agree. If not, look for another treatment.

- You say that because in your case there was a medical error?

-I cannot say, but, having passed all the circles of hell, I understand that the opinions of doctors can be different and, probably, there were some other ways to solve my problem.

A set of drugs necessary for Catherine for one day photo: Alina Tratnikhenko for TD

After removing part of the intestine, Dr. Katya survived three more surgical interventions. I will drown in medical details, but I remember the images. Here Dr. Katya cannot eat, then even drink. It endlessly tears, the body becomes fragile, as if glass. There are already three caterpillars on their stomach, they seem to compete - they suck out life from Dr. Katya. Then the move from one hospital to another, Katya felt a huge pulsating wound on her stomach, open and scarlet. And then she plunged into a black abyss. There was nothing there: neither joy nor pain.

Two weeks after the operation, when there was already fresh stoma on her side, Katya asked the surgeon: “What was left inside? And then everyone is silent ... "

The doctor replied: “Nothing there ...” and cried. And Katya cried. That's how it became clear.

What is she constantly complaining?

- I really wanted to work. When I went to the operation, I thought for several days, and it went out for six months. The patients called, supported. I would have come out before, but a bag hung on my side, and every sip of water, even the saliva that came out of me, sounded like an erupted volcano. I started working only when they removed the stoma.

Katya was released into the world without explaining how to live with a short intestine. There were no specialists on this topic in Rostov-on-Don. And the general misunderstanding hung in the air: that she constantly complains? Others live after such operations - and nothing. And Katya felt worse every day: her nails lay down, her hair fell out, her teeth deteriorated, and she lost consciousness during physical exertion.

Ekaterina Photo: Alina Testnichenko for TD

- I poked like a blind kitten. I’ll go to one doctor, to another, to the third. Help was minimal. I was completely alone. And she hoped only for God, went with her suitcases to the Diveevsky monastery as a novice - cleaned potatoes during the day, lay at night on intravenous nutrition. I knew that without a dropper I could not get out of bed in the morning. She led long conversations with the priest, asked for help. He said: God cannot send the tests beyond the power.

Katya then weighed forty kilograms. She stood in front of the priest, staggering, and thought how much she still had these forces. And is there enough money for them. The intravenous nutrition that she prescribed to herself was worth at first half her salary, then the entire salary, now there are already two. And what's next?

Eight hours on a dropper

In 2017, Katya found a group of people with SKK on the Internet, and already through them went to the “Wind of Hopes” - a non -profit organization in which they help people with a short intestine syndrome fight for their rights.

The first thing that was done there for Ekaterina Anisimova was sent for examination and treatment in an ambulance to them. I.I. Dzhanelidze. Then there was St. Petersburg Medical University. Academician I.P. Pavlov. They convened a medical commission. The case of Katya was recognized as complex, poorly studied and interdisciplinary - prescribed competent drug therapy, including parenteral nutrition.
And then Dr. Katya learned from the head of the “Wind of Hopes” Evgenia Birkaya that she should give her food for free. But to direct appeals to the clinic and the Ministry of Health of the Rostov Region, Anisimova received refusals: she was offered to go to the hospital for a dropper. And she lay down, left with Sepsis and in the worst state than she came.

Catherine prepares a nutrient solution for an evening dropper photo: Alina Testnichenko for TD

- In my house everything is adjusted to my needs. I follow cleanliness, gently intrigue needles, there has never been an infection, which in my case is very dangerous. On the dropper I lie eight night hours, I sleep on one side, so as not to damage the port, I get up several times and change the bags with a nutrient composition. Thanks to this morning, I can go to work and look like a person. This is impossible in the hospital, - Katya raises her eyes to the ceiling, on her neck I notice two more thin scars. - Therefore, when the “wind of hopes” suggested solving the issue through the court, I did not refuse. Although I did not believe in success, one court by that time had already lost.

Evgenia Birkaya believes that in cases similar to Katin, a positive solution to the issue depends on how much the lawyer is prepared. Because according to the Law of the Ministry of Health of the regions, they are obliged to provide sick residents with qualified medical care and medicines. If they are not able to do this, then the state has many mechanisms for such cases, for example, subsidies from the federal budget to help a specific patient. So, the only question is whether the Ministry of Health of the region wants to deal with the problem or not.

"Wind of hopes"

“I am part of the Expert Council on Orphan (rare) diseases under the Committee for the Protection of Health of the State Duma of the Russian Federation,” explains Evgenia Birkaya. - And at the February meeting of the Council it was said that the Rostov region is one of the best in our country in terms of providing patients with orphan diseases. Perhaps one of them feels the care of the Ministry of Health, but she did not reach Katya. Therefore, we began to resolve the issue in court. The lawyers of the ministry fought in court to death. They proved that parenteral nutrition can only be used in the hospital, that is, Katya, in their opinion, should “live” in the hospital 365 days a year. Although the Katya prescriptions of the medical commission clearly say: at home. Because otherwise she will not be able to work. And then someone from the side of the defendant suggested: “Let's try a week? Let her (Katya) not introduce parenteral nutrition, and see how she will feel in a week! ” Our lawyers were not at a loss and made a oncoming offer: "And let's not eat a week and we will see what will happen to you?"

The first, district court “Wind of hopes” lost, and the second, regional - won. Katya did not go to him anymore: every hearing takes her for several years of life.

Ekaterina Photo: Alina Testnichenko for TD

- Now I am in disgrace, I went against the system. I probably had to lie quietly and wait for death. By nature, I am soft, non -conflict. And she herself would never have gotten into this war, but thanks to the lawyers the “wind of hopes” for the first time felt that not one. Now colleagues ask: why are you fighting with us? Where did we cross you? But I'm not struggling with them, I just have to live somehow.

Katya has fears that there will still be unpleasant surprises in this war. For example, there are reasons for dismissal. Lawyers of the “Wind of Hopes” assure that this cannot be and, if that, they are always there.

“Katya is deeply pretty to me,” says Evgenia Birkaya. - I came to her at the GNC in Moscow, patients constantly called her, and she, despite her condition, patiently advised them. I suspect, many are not even aware that their beloved doctor herself is incurably seriously ill ...

There are many cases like Katin. And organizations that can professionally defend the rights of patients are units. The “Wind of Hopes” is unique in its kind. But in order for him to live, money is needed: to pay for research for patients, for the work of psychologists and lawyers, to business trips to the farthest corners of the country. Usually it is there that a person is one on one with trouble and, having clenched into a lump, waits for him to devour the fat indifferent caterpillar. We can stop her together. Even a small donation to the Hopes Wind Foundation will save patients such as Dr. Katya. And someday Dr. Katya will save us. This is the law of nature.