"In situations when you are drowning, it is pointless to be silent"

She drove parts of herself in her bag, swallowed a bulb, sang a song about a hedgehog with a hole in the right side, shot without a goal, openly wrote about the personal - this year I did a lot for the first time. My name is Svetlana Makoveeva. I live in Samara, I work as a photojournalist. I am 42 years old. At the beginning of 2023 I found out that I have cancer

At first, only relatives knew about the disease. A few months after it turned out that the case is very difficult - until I am ready to call the form of cancer more precisely - I dared to write about my situation publicly and ask for help. Help not only psychological, but also monetary: examinations, operation and rehabilitation required unbearable finances for me.

And this step changed everything.

My publications on VKontakte have become an online diary for me, support and better psychotherapy-subscribers support me in every sense and share their stories. Thank you very much.

Suddenly, my notes will also help someone in difficult times.

How I get cancer

With distrust

It is difficult to say when exactly this began. Maybe when I saw the book "Hell Carousel" in the bookcrossing and reached for it. Or when she pulled a card with the inscription "Everything is pointless outside the door from the joke deck. Or when, as if from a push, I woke up in the middle of the night, because I dreamed of a hollow monkey, and I had to take pictures with it.

And now I am already sitting in a clinic, getting a bag in my hands and I hear that I still did not wake up: "This is urgently needed in the oncocenter."

With a diagnosis, she rushed to a review to Moscow. But she strove there slowly, choosing a train instead of an airplane. Maybe that's why the certificates “all this is not true” was not enough for me.

Sometimes the gaze clung completely banal images: broken mirrors or glass)

In the metropolitan cancer center, I was given a card: how to get from point A to point B, bypassing the tower and evil guards, going down to the dungeons and looking for mysterious signs. They gave the opportunity to sweat in many hours of lines that have sincere conversations with other frightened bunnies who escaped there from all over Russia. “An interesting adventure, the vacation budget is not in vain,” I thought.

Unrestrained squandering in Samara could continue. A sharp awakening thought pierced me almost along the alarm clock - at five in the morning: “Maybe this is all not true?! Maybe my biopsy was confused with someone else? It is urgent to redo. ” Mom ground me: "And in the MRI they also put another person instead of you?"

The way my cancer looked like my landscape. Forest through which you need to go through: Svetlana Makoveeva

With humor

Of course, potentially the best joke in me is stuck. I went to the compartment, and the fellow traveler first offered to place my luggage. I wanted to answer that I am light, that I am only taking my cancer. He is here, in a bag, in a small bag. But I restrained myself and was immediately involved in the abyss of a conversation on how great it is to spend a vacation in Magadan. I caught fire. I will come off and will certainly go.

But on the other hand, to almost all my friends, I sent my postoperative photo with pipe in my stomach with the signature “Look, they introduced a USB slot into me and put it for recharging!” It seemed funny.

With the feeling that I am not the only

Thanks for him to the family, friends and colleagues. As well as a song about a hedgehog with a hole in the right side. If we ever meet with him, there will be something to discuss.

With new acquaintances

The first happened in the hospital when, having hung my bags with blood and other things on a rack with wheels, I went from one end of the corridor to another - postoperative need. I heard that someone was rolling up behind me-literally. It was also a equipped man with a proposal to walk together. I agreed. Because how to refuse a person when you immediately see his inner world?

Photo in a special corset a few days after the operation: Svetlana Makoveeva

In surprise

Although this is a weak, helpless word to describe the emotional gamut from the results of postoperative histology. That sticky understanding that in a couple of months I can’t pass my cancer. I got into a small percentage of people with a complex, cunningly organized tumor. Now she drives me into “Vacation” to St. Petersburg: we need more examinations, consultations of professors, discussion of a new operating stage.

If on my birthday I only hinted at difficult times and was sure that I would return to work by summer, now I no longer make anything. I used to try not to talk about the disease. But then I realized that in situations when you are drowning, it is pointless to be silent. And my page on VKontakte turned into an oncodernal.

How I get cancer

And I shoot

Who was not the illness only during the illness.

Immediately after the operation - a bug. He, turning over in his back, had to eat for a long time if he wanted to stand on his legs and rush. I expected that I could soon be worn on the walls and ceiling, but turned into an ant. He had other things. He went to the store opposite many times, dragging himself differently by half a kilo: it was impossible to lift heavily.

I arrived at St. Petersburg and became a gopher. He had his own mink on Nevsky Prospekt, in which he disappeared every evening. It looks like a tuned coffin: light turns on, you can drag a pound of books and put sweets under the pillow. Suffly, but comfortable.

Self -portrait. I took this picture before my birthday when I already knew diagnosis: Svetlana Makoveeva

During illness, a friend advised to shoot a photo project: he would distract. But for me it would mean to think through the structure, make personnel regularly, understand what I "want to say it." There was no resource - I looked mainly inside, into myself. Often silently and with misunderstanding. Outwardly responded to the external, making random shots on the phone. While they were few: she took herself after the operation, Konura in the hostel and for some reason pulls to photograph vegetation, the forest that surrounds the oncocenter.

Then, looking at them, I thought that such a shooting was akin to fortune telling for me.

View from the Window Word: Svetlana Makoveeva

There is no future in the cards extracted from the deck, they do not know answers to questions. But this is the translator who helps to make out what is trying in his unclear, bird language to say intuition. Through symbols, he drags decisions from the unconscious to the conscious. After all, we already know a lot of things in advance, while continuing to think stubbornly and pointlessly. We hesitate - to the right or to the left, for a long time understanding where we will go.

I remembered somewhere read: “The predictor does not see the future. But he notices in the present those prerequisites that form it. ”

Histology in Poceteftoto: Svetlana Makoveeva

So, I, taking off when I give the opportunity to jump out, find a form, find a form. Stand in the personal deck of the tarot. Now I peer into these cards and listen: how to respond that they prophesy.

Someday I understand.

PS, as you probably already understood, I am in St. Petersburg. I collected money for a trip. Thank you friends, you are incredible!

How I get cancer

And I don't hope

In February, when I only found out the diagnosis, I thought what serious things would go to - as it happens in films when the hero learns about a serious illness. But I was not drawn to "reaching heaven." I did not want to quit everything and go to Magadan, replace friends with “new, better” ones, suddenly change work and so on. So I realized that, in general, I am satisfied with life.

In St. Petersburg on my visit, it was sunny, I shot Tenifoto: Svetlana Makoveeva

I did not throw the knee (well), but then drank a lot of coffee. I don’t know why I needed so much vigor.

One evening, cold coffee was seen in a blue spherical thermal circle. I analyzed the situation and decided that it was blue enough and spherical to put it on the stove like a Turk. In expectations there was hot coffee, in reality - a vile chemical smell and a spoiled dish.

Then I caught an insight: so why do I need a red diploma of a technical university with a five in physics! To spoil the blue mug! Red diploma is a blue mug, everything converges. I have a technical specialty, but I did not work on it for a day.

Selfies a few hours after the operation: Svetlana Makoveeva

But many of my classmates work in their specialty. Recently, one of them, in whom I often rewritten lectures and envied it with the mind (he understood the technical ultimately, and did not remember like me), threw me a very timely quote: “The samurai going to the war is humbled that he had already died and acts. That is, humility does not imply inaction. ”

It gives calm. Indeed, the emotional swing exhausted me more than the disease. I flew on them between the inspired “I will go to Moscow - and I will be canceled with the diagnosis”, “I will do the operation and forget about it” and how, in the end, everything turned around. Tired. Now I try not to hope - this is too emotionally charged state. I continue to use this word, but for myself I translate it now: I am making possible efforts to achieve the desired result.

Before that, I did not like flowers, and now my gaze always clung to them, even if they were in Urnefoto: Svetlana Makoveeva

PS for NMIC Petrova is Bor. I went there to a walk and stumbled upon the cemetery. They came up with witty neighborhood. The opportunity to wander there and leave the invigorating better than coffee. It is strange that patients do not take patients on organized walks.

How I get cancer

And hired a translator

More precisely, grown in herself. Now he deftly remakes “everything will be fine” to me in something like “I have a dealing with you, I empathize with you, and it is important for me to show it.” I can already react to this with gratitude.

But how I twitched and annoyed when I heard this phrase in the first months! What I had to fit into my understanding “good” in any way. I did not understand why this should be said or written.

I am in order to get out of the speech stamps: to comprehend, to realize what is said. But in moments of confusion, when other, more accurate words “scatter”, they are still very useful. Something like a rescue circle, which the drowner wants to quit immediately.

The hand was sick of frequent injections into Vienna. Looking at the shadow seemed to make it separate and anesthetic: Svetlana Makoveeva

As soon as I thought this thought, it became easier for me with others. Yes, and with yourself too.

Previously, if I could not choose words, I preferred to remain silent. Now I think that it is better to manifest itself if a person, his story responds. Let our internal translators work, they will cope.

PS in the village of Sand, in which I am now, the forest. Birds sing. In the row are “Shaverland”, “Shanhlykland” and “Pieland”. On them - “onkoland” (in the village of several oncocenters). The staff is extremely polite. They understand that many who turn around their heart knocks in the temples and really prevents the thought.

How I get cancer

And I'm not looking for an explanation

Once at a beauty contest, a jury member decided to convict participants in intelligence. He asked sternly: "Why is the moon not from cast iron?" While they were crumbling, I quickly realized: “Because there was not enough cast iron on the moon!” They didn’t give me the crown then: I guessed the answer, but I was not in a swimsuit, but with a camera.

But I was proud of myself: after all, I very cleverly deal with “why”.

But when he sailed, the formidable question “Why did I get sick?”, My thoughts obviously at first rushed about the wrong rails.

Self -portrait in capsule hostlefoto: Svetlana Makoveeva

I got sick because ... I don’t know how to Zen and meditation, I ate little broccoli, I think the wrong thoughts, once I hated an ostrich and the like. All this creaking “composition”, to which sometimes very unexpected “wagons” were added along the course, added even shame and guilt in the course of movement to anxiety: in front of him, in front of loved ones.

But I somehow jumped off him, from this terrible thought-road. After a couple of months it turned out. I don’t have more a folding story why this is happening to me. Because it cannot be. Shit Happens. And it frees it. Now I do not generate hypotheses (well) about when it all started and what I could do differently. Although I still like one, so far it is a pity to discard it. Before the diagnosis, I wrote a text about my almost two years of experience in proper nutrition: what recommendations followed, what were the results. I remember, for a long time I was flying with how to finish it. And here he is, a sparkling ending and even an occasion to change the headline: how I was in healthy for two years and fell ill with cancer.

On the left: a fragment of the sign of the store that hooked attention. Right: I drew my hand in a lesson on art therapy and photographed)

PS St. Petersburg "Cancer Corps" is more comfortable in Moscow. I met Irina, who plants flowers in the territory. She showed me a photo of her home "pets" for half an hour: roses, cacti and any unpronounceable. It was interesting, but because of this I was late for the train to the city. For several hours she stared at the gloomy station, photographing everything.

How I get cancer

And I write

It seems to me not scary to die. He lay down and lie down calmly. Really scary different. For example, when there are beavers. Or there is a feeling that everything was gone. Or go to an unloved job.

And the disease is very similar to her.

I woke up in the morning and thought: “What, again is that all? When is the weekend? " And he was not foreseen. With vacation it was not clear all the more. This seems to have spoiled the character. I wanted to somehow express dissatisfaction. But phlegmatic people like me do not know how to beat dishes. Yes, and sorry. A plate with a hippo and a holy fool is easy to lose and difficult to find.

Selfies after the tests of tests in the NMIC of oncology named after PetrovaFoto: Svetlana Makoveeva

Therefore, I decided to choose an alternative without damage to property. I started writing. Furious, not holding back. In an orange notebook. It seemed that I would unload all this, heavily rolling inside, into an external container, and exhale. And I will sleep, without waking up rhythmically, as if I dream about a beaver every half an hour.

But the diary did not help. Everything was gloomy, which poured into the words, as if ricochelitelo and became even worse. Then I guessed where I put myself. In which cycle. Emotions are born only from words, there is no reaction to the event in itself. I started it from a negative description, from easily pop -up associations on the topic of cancer: it is not for nothing that Solzhenitsyn, Remarque, OE and other authors tried.

As she formulated the situation, she lived. The carelessly spoke, the more painful and more acutely reacted.

The notebook was postponed, but I could not write. The texts began to fly to friends. As a polite and cautious author, who did not want to lose the reader at once, I tried about the disease in a humorous manner. And these short, almost daily notes from March slowly pulled me out. At the same time, the texts helped better conversations. Because the conversations are redundant: I’ll tell you my oncostrostap, and go together another hour. And inevitably, some kind of anxiety will leak out and talk, you will not keep track.

Lunch at the NMIC oncology named after Petrova, St. Petersburgphoto: Svetlana Makoveeva

For funny texture stories, there was enough. When I began to write my stories, I recalled Dovlatov: “I began to split the personality. Life has turned into a plot. Apparently, it was a protective reaction. Otherwise, I would have died from fear ... My literature became a complement to life. The addition, without which life turned out to be completely indecent. ”

The sparkling style of Sergei Donatovich is far from me, but I keep a landmark on him. A realization of himself in a character really helps. In general, for me this is the only thing that works.

How I get cancer

And I'm waiting

The genetic test, which I was waiting for the beginning of June, is not ready. They say it will be in July.

I am pacifying nervous tic in connection with this.

I went to a psychological game about a lighthouse and a ship. The lighthouse was supposed to stand with the bell and attract to himself, and the ship “sail” to its sound, but in the dark, that is, closing his eyes. As the squinting ship moved to their lighthouse, other participants were interfering: they made sounds randomly - the presenter gave everyone simple musical instruments.

Self -portrait in the NMIC oncology. Petrova, St. Petersburgphoto: Svetlana Makoveeva

So those who were lighthouses behaved differently. Someone called this bell without stopping, someone rarely and indeed. Such extrapolation of different life tactics. Someone lures to himself persistently, someone will throw a hint and waits for the ship he will realize and appear.

When I was a ship, I realized that with closed eyes, sounds are perceived hyperbolized. And it is terrible to advance among cacophony. But it is worth isolating one sound, for example, and go to it, it seems that random drum or pipe is not so scary. And here, too, everything is transparent: you understand where, to whom or to what you are going - more stamina and tranquility.

I know what purpose I am going to. I want to recover.

Montryftoto was easily guessed in plant shadows: Svetlana Makoveeva

Another botanical garden helps me a lot.

I look at the plate with the name “Persikoboist” - obviously, a bizarre mixture of dessert and side dish - and I understand that my situation is not the most awkward.

I watch the cracks with the cubs and be touched. I recall the news how one of the ducks brought its offspring to the Botanical Garden, moving with them a busy highway. Surely exclaimed in Cherkhovo: "To the pond, to the pond!"

I found in the greenhouse my alter ego - a drooping saga. We are not related to plans to live a thousand years and not fame since the time of dinosaurs, but to the "boil" of activity. Но если он хоть как-то осиливает отрастить пару листочков за год, то мне в процессе ожидания развития не хочется вовсе. Буду свиваться и закукливаться, пока все не прояснится, вот что. И разглядывать свои фотографии. Как выяснилось, иногда работает как скорая помощь, когда в моем настроенном способе думать о болезни сбоит.

Однажды это произошло, когда врач смотрела историю болезни и удивленно подняла брови: «Где же вы так нагрешили, что с вами это происходит?» Я ответила с усмешкой: «Вы это сейчас серьезно?»

Открытка, которую друг прислал накануне. Ретроспективно казалось, что будто предчувствовалФото: Светлана Маковеева

После приема я вышла в коридор: меня трясло. Не понимая, что делать, я начала писать приятелю. Вываливала сумбурные истории из прошлого, в которых я — молодец. Поняла, что оправдываюсь перед каким-то невидимым судьей, и разозлилась на себя. Чтобы отвлечься, стала смотреть свои фотографии, сделанные во время болезни.

И впервые заметила, что снимала я в основном растительность: кусты, лес, цветы. То есть еще не сформулировав, болезнь я воспринимала как распространение чего-то в себе, как порабощающую меня природу. Как лес, который во мне начал разрастаться. Как траву, которая хочет заполонить. Как нежданные и неуместные цветы. Это органичное мне понимание, а не навязанное. Когда появляется и удерживается четкий образ болезни, становится легче. Ум больше не блуждает. Да и знать, что имеешь дело с природой, с хаосом, оказывается легче, чем искать, в чем моя вина.

КАК Я НЕ БОЛЕЮ РАКОМ

Перед подготовкой к операции я глотала лампочку. Лежала тихонечко, глаза только немного выпучивала, потому что прикидывала: если провод сейчас ловко перекусить, то она во мне так и останется! Врачи меня разрежут, а внутри — свет. Как в холодильнике. Они вытащат ненужное, положат взамен мороженое, пирожное, шоколад. И зашьют. Я, довольная, пойду домой.

Автопортрет после того, как узнала, что «отпускают под наблюдение»Фото: Светлана Маковеева

Все примерно так и получилось, только чуть-чуть по-другому. Через несколько недель я получила свое «прижизненное патолого-анатомическое исследование» и выписку с неожиданными рекомендациями: «Повторная операция. Лучевая терапия». Я запротестовала, тогда услышала: «Это протокол. Поезжай в Питер: может, там пересмотрят диагноз».

Я поехала, и это стало возможным только с вашей помощью.

Деньги прилетали на карточку от знакомых и незнакомых, и этого хватило на поездку и на оплату всех срочных исследований. И еще я получила очень-очень много пожеланий здоровья.

Как мне написали в одном из комментариев, «это новое проживание близости с людьми». So it was.

Лес в поселке Песочном, в котором находится НМИЦ онкологии им. ПетроваФото: Светлана Маковеева

Пришлось делать несколько тестов. Срок готовности самого сложного и дорогого — полтора месяца. Я ждала и думала, что мой камень-талисман, видимо, теперь апатит. И он придавил меня. Потому что, кроме апатии, все это время не было ничего.

Недавно тест пришел. Он не был на открытке с котиком, как я ожидала. И там все было вроде кириллицей, но ничего не понятно. Я ждала чего-то вроде «Это все было неправда, будьте счастливы, теперь и навсегда».

Моя врач в отпуске, в отъезде, но на мое нетерпеливое «Что это все значит?!» ответила в мессенджере. Вторая операция не нужна, лучевая тоже. Observation.

Я почувствовала, как сваливается тягостный камень апатит, придавливавший меня почти полгода. Потому что теперь можно планировать, браться за долгосрочные проекты. Позволять, до конца еще не веря такой роскоши, говорить о себе в будущем времени: я сделаю, я поеду…

Снимок во время ожидания электрички в поселке ПесочномФото: Светлана Маковеева

Спасибо вам, дорогие друзья!!! За пожелания добра, за поддержку, за так нужные мне для поездки, тестов и для этого самого «наблюдения» переводы.

Может, мой пример вдохновит кого-то не опускать руки. Чудеса бывают.

Нужно только делать все, что от тебя зависит. И не бояться просить и принимать помощь.