My daughter tells me to think about the times I've won and of what I've left behind. Of course, I can't take anything with me -- not even memories -- yet talking about better times seems like something to do other than looking at my foot, which leaks and looks like a battle wound. I've left discussing memories until it was too late. Now every word is hard to say.
I liked fights and arguments because I always used to win. I was smart, handsome, and had an almost uncanny ability to work hard and see through things and people. I also had an amazing memory, and was good at telling jokes, which helped lighten the mood. Since I liked being in charge, I chose the military. However, I never wanted to kill people. I wanted to fight death and win. So, I combined the two ms: military and medicine and became a military doctor. These two interests are combined during the COVID period at national and world level in a way I did not belive I would live to see happen. Now I am too ill to fight anything other than my own body and with every battle lost more and more of my resources are gone. I struggle to breathe, I struggle to swallow and choke on every other mouth of drink or food. There is almost nothing left. Still life drags on.
I married the most smartest, kindest and most beautiful woman in medical school, and treated dating her as a form of battle. I did not give up no matter what she said until she accepted to marry me. The first time we went out together, I introduced her as my future wife. Some might think it was creepy. I'd like to think it meant I was determined, and knew what I wanted from life. I wanted a family with her. So with determination I pursued that goal, and when she turned 28 and worried that if she did not accept me she won't have a family, we married.
We soon found out that our family dream won't be easy to achieve. My wife suffered from a combination of severe hyperemesis gravidarum and a hormonal imbalance, which resulted in very difficult pregnancies that ended prematurely. The babies she miscarried moved, but could not breathe because they were too young. After a number of failed pregnancies, and progesterone treatment with pills that did not work for her, my wife wanted to adopt. Working as a gynecologist gave her the opportunity to see many abandoned children. She would have taken all of them home if she could. I did not agree because I did not want to accept defeat. I told her we will succeed in having our own children. Eventually, we found out that if she took intra-muscular progesterone injections instead of pills, it stopped the miscarrigies. I'd do the injections. They were painful and after some months the oily substance would come back out though what looked like mild infections, and so we could not reuse the same skin space, and ended up having to do them in many different muscles. However, unlike the pills, they worked. She gave birth to Mihai at 34 weeks. Neither of us had ever seen an uglier baby, but he could breathe. He was old enough. After almost four years of bed rest combined with vomitting almost everything she ate, we had won. My wife was so weak she could not walk over a threshold, but we had a son. The hospital put him in an incubator. We took turns watching him. The first night was my turn. At some point I saw cockroaches coming out of the incubator. The child was red and he was crying. I put my hand it. It was too hot. Another few minutes, and his lungs would have been affected. A few weeks later another child who had been born on term and had a cold, used the same incubator and died from the same malfunction. Several such accidents happend all over the country in the years to come.
Mihai did not have the strength to nurse, and at first my wife did not have any milk. So, I'd go to the maternity ward, and ask the nurse for milk. The lady who provided us with milk in those first days was a gypsy. Later we joked that it was the gypsy's milk that is causing his current nomad lifestyle (Of course, today, the assumptions that gypsies are nomad is a stereotype. Plenty of gypsies are settled and most take good care their families.) Once my wife was able to milk herself, we went home. It took two months for Mihai to start nursing on his own. The first month he lost a kg. In the second he started to gain weight. Once he started nursing, he seemed to almost never stop. At 4 months he weighted 8 kg. We were convinced he was the smartest and most beautiful baby in the world by then.
In Mihai's first winter my wife developed pneumonia, but eventually made it through. She wanted to live to raise her son. I remember I made tea for her by put half a tea pot of leaves, and added loads of sugar. She could not drink it because it was too sweet. I tried again without the sugar, and the same number of leaves. Then it was very bitter, but I made her drink it through tears. I told this story proudly until my stroke. I've been sick for almost four years since. For the past year, I have been able to eat only banans, unsalted cheese, and an egg from time to time. I can't even swallow water properly. I've learned, of course, that not everything is a battle. One should be kind and considerate especially when people are ill.
Once Mihai was a bit older, we fought to have a second child. My wife had an exam that year (primariat) and after that exam came the misscarriage. He was pasted 22 weeks, and might have lived had he been born today. He lived for more than half an hour even then. It was spring, and we buried him under a tree that was full of flowers. It seemed the price she paid for eventually becoming a full doctor (doctor primar) was too high. But life move on. Mihai was a year and a half. He was talking, walking, and we were so very proud of him, and so very lucky to have help from my in-laws and to be able to work. Our last son would have had my father-in-law's nose, had he lived.
Three years after Mihai our daughter was born. The director of the hospital was on duty. My wife had not felt comfortable having him there during the birth process. He also happened to be away at the time. So, she did not call him and since her colleague who had monitored the pregnancy was on vacation, my wife led her own delivery with a nurse. She was already the best gynecologist in the hospital and I supported her decision. At 37 weeks, the baby was almost on time. My daughter was beautiful. I remember saying she'll look like me and be stronger than her husband one day. An hour or so after the delivery we came home. Our departure correlated with the temerity to leave before being checked by a doctor caused an uproar. When the discussion arose, I told them the hospital was dirty, and that after my first child was almost burnt alive, he was ill with conjunctivitis for months. I only exerted my right as a father to protect my daughter and my wife from their dirty hands. They were furious.
I told the truth at a time when a mis-spoken word could lead to arrest, torture and death. The directors were not chosen on merit, but on political connections, and they were sometimes known for betraying their own colleagues and for sending them to prison for mis-spoken words. This would have been a fate worse than death. So, my wife and I left that night for Bucharest to try to mitigate the damage, while my mother and father in law cared for the baby. When they started the investigation, my wife wrote only positive things about her boss. He continued to make her life difficult for some of the 7 years that followed until we moved to Timisoara. Retrospectively, I wish I was more of a diplomat. Saying exactly what you think has a price, which I never quite paid. My wife always tried to predict when problems would arise, and did everything in her power to solve them peacefully and to protect me, and our family.
I loved fishing, walking and I loved spending time outside. It's funny how I have not been able to walk well for more than 10 years, and not at all for more than three years. It had seemed impossible that it would be my fate. I used to walk so fast that a few miles seemed nothing to me. I would cross both Bucharest and Timisoara by foot. For the first fifty years of my life I seemed invincible. I battled for my life with illness only once. We had gone fishing at Balta lui Ion near Alexandria -- it was a bigger pond with water weeds, mud, and some fish. When I stepped in the mud I cut my food on a broken can. My wife offered to clean my wound. I ignored her, and kept fishing. A few days later I developed very high fever. My skin and eyes were yellow. Death felt near. My wife suggested we go to the hospital. We thought it was a pseudo-viral hepatitis. They would have never diagnosed me properly or treated me correctly. I chose to stay home and signed that I was responsible for my own fate. I was in my mid thirties and did not want to die. My wife thought of the cut on foot, which had healed since. She took my urine to the hospital. The vial broke in her purse, but she gathered what was left and tested it. It came out that both the liver and kidneys were severly affected. My wife immediately thought of the healed cut. It must be leptospirosis, she said. I took antibiotics, and went into shock. The disease is weakly contagious, but the children were with their grandparents in Lugoj, and my wife did not catch it. Eventually, things got better and I recovered.
My main fault was that I did not compromise unless I was forced to. I did what I enjoyed until I lost my helath and stopped being able to do much. I overate and drank, and gained weight slowly -- a bit every year. I also spent too much time on various screens. I combined overeating with exercise, which kept things going to some degree. I built a huge house with my own hands and with help that my wife struggled to send along. I had a garden inside and outside, and I had pets. I never accepted moderation, and never thought of the consequences even though as a doctor my job was to help people make good choices.
As I struggle to breathe, the only thing I feel is pain mingled with a certain detachment from it as if it is not my pain any more. I've been bedrid for more than 3 years. I had a major stroke on the 11th of January 2017. I did not think I'll live, and I was not quite ready to die. I thought I'll either recover or die, but I did neither. I've been living in a form purgatorium since with a few more strokes which happened whenever things looked like they were improving. All my life I was so very sure I knew right from wrong. Now I am no longer sure what victory entails. I find it difficult to let things go even when there is nothing left to fight for.
