When the doctor feels bad too

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

She sat in a chair, in her favorite position, tucking her legs under her, and mechanically switched channels on the television remote control, absolutely not delving into the frames flashing on the TV screen, neither about the beauty contest, nor about the exhausting thirty-five-degree heat that swept the whole country, not about another plane crash.

She, accustomed to listening to long stories about all kinds of human sores and feeling someone else's pain, felt bad today herself. Everything inside ached and ached. It was my soul that ached. As a doctor who many times cut a human body with a scalpel, knew not only it from the outside, but also from the inside, and never once saw the soul there, did she still believe that the soul exists? And now she is once again convinced of this.

Half an hour ago, her daughter grabbed her blouse and ran out into the street. For the first time, after the death of their husband, a well-known surgeon in the city, they had an unpleasant conversation for both.

No, what did she say to her? It is quite natural that she, as a mother, can ask why this young man, it seems, Volodya, who came to their house for the first time on Masha's eighteenth birthday, has been living with them for the second week.

- Well - she reasoned to herself, - I agree that after Manyashka's birthday I had two shifts in a row at the hospital (but then I could not leave this young, newly operated girl unattended). And then, when I returned home and did not have time to sleep properly, they sent for me a briefing, because the case was extraordinary. After all, when I ran into the operating room, it was all covered in blood. I got used to it and knew that at such moments they always call me. Only a miracle helped the woman on the operating table to get out of the afterlife.

Yes, let's say she just noticed today that this young man is still in their apartment.

And to the mother's natural question:"

- No.

“But at least you understand that it becomes indecent when a young man is alone with you in our apartment for so long,” she tried to reason with her daughter.

And Manyashkin's answer completely unbalanced her:

- Why Vadim Sergeevich can do this, but Volodya cannot. And in general, maybe I will never marry.

After that, she had to explain for a long time that she and Vadim Sergeevich are adults, and he occupies a responsible position in a large enterprise, and he has a seriously ill wife, and, in the end, first it was your dad, not Vadim Sergeevich. And if a conversation started on this topic, then she's only fifty and she, damn it, is still a woman.

With a sad look, she twisted her head around, as if in search of that snub-nosed, freckled girl who was quietly sitting in the corner of the staff room with a book in her hands, getting used to the hospital as to her home. Because the hospital was the house where she and her husband stayed most of the day and even ate the whole family in the hospital canteen. But in front of her stood a beautiful, slender, tall girl with loose fluffy hair of a reddish hue, a girl in blue jeans and a top with thin shoulder straps.

When did you manage to grow up like that, daughter? It was a long time ago and as if yesterday: college, work, marriage, the birth of Mashenka. I entered the residency at the insistence of my husband and mother, who unanimously insisted that she continue to study, because, as they said, "you have a talent from God to heal people." After the residency, she undertook all the most complex operations. Through her golden hands of a gynecologist, and now the head of the department, hundreds of women have passed and received a second life. So she did not learn anything else - neither to sew, nor to knit, nor to twist compotes. She only knows how to heal people. But it seems that she paid little attention to her own daughter. I must have invented it - I will not marry. But Manyashka will be a wonderful hostess, but this is grandmother's merit.

Here she noticed that the clock, still on the TV screen, showed twelve at night. Well, where is Masha? And Volodya is not there either. Must be together somewhere. Why is it so hard on your soul, as if you were passed through the millstones of a mill?

And tomorrow is another difficult day.

“I have to take a pill, otherwise I won't be able to sleep,” she reasoned to herself, getting up from the chair. Yes, sleep became more and more difficult, the habit of not sleeping for two days, when I had to sit at the bedside of a seriously ill patient all night long, affected. What does Larisa Gennadievna, a psychotherapist from her hospital, advise - a pill of diphenhydramine and a glass of brandy? Cognac - no, but diphenhydramine, it seems, is.

Hands themselves reached for the first aid kit on the wall.

In the morning, a woman with a young girl was waiting for her at the entrance to the hospital.

- Nadezhda Nikolaevna, you will forgive the importunity, but you promised to see my daughter yourself.

The short answer is:

- Yes I remember.

And then with firm, confident steps into the staff room. And in my head there are already hundreds of cases. Among them, one very important one is in the seventh ward, where a woman with a malignant tumor of the uterus lies. How long had she been choosing the words to prepare her for this dire diagnosis. And suddenly, such a carelessness of a nurse, who left a medical record on the table unattended. What can I say now, how to comfort a sick woman who, for sure, is shedding tears and now does not want to talk to anyone? And I will definitely fire a nurse, this is not a place in a hospital.

A sharp phone call interrupted his reflections. And the native Mashin's voice hastily shouted into the receiver:

- Mom, mommy, it's me. Volodya left, I saw him off. We walked all night and talked a lot. Mom, you're right, Volodya and I need to live apart and think. What should you cook for dinner. You're coming home tonight, right?

Then a second of silence and a quiet gentle:

- I love you very much, mom.

- I love you too, Manyasha.

She said and immediately caught herself thinking that her daughter was growing up, after all, a wonderful one.