Читать книгу The Exchange Student - Nikita Nesynov - Страница 20

At the age of ten I was going to a medical checkup at the hospital, which looked much like a post-war military hospital. There I could see spring beds in my room, dilapidated walls, creaking doors and people were coughing everywhere. The food over there was disgusting. It was absolutely forbidden to go out of this terrible place. So, I had to spend two weeks there like a prisoner.

My room was on the third floor, and mentally ill people were placed one floor higher. Almost every night, I could hear horrible screams from the upstairs and I couldn’t sleep.

I had a lot of different health tests and treatments. That day they tested my blood. I came into the doctor’s office; she put the needle into my vein and began to pull out the blood. For such analysis doctors usually take no more than one full test-tube of blood from the patient. I didn’t know that, so when I saw the doctor take out the full box of these test-tubes (about 12 of them in the box) I wasn’t surprised, I thought it was supposed to be done like that. So, the doctor filled up the second, the third and fourth one and so on. When she was filling up the seventh one she asked me, “How are you feeling, my dear?”

“Dizzy pretty much.”

She brought the cotton wool soaked in ammonia to my nose and asked me to smell it. By that time I almost lost my consciousness, but after that I felt a little better and she continued stealing my blood. Finally, she managed to take twelve test-tubes of my blood.

I was returning back to my room like a drunkard and immediately fell asleep. The very next day my room neighbor had to go through that blood test. Before went to the doctor, he said, “I’m a little worried.

How did that procedure go? How did you feel at the end?” I explained him what had happened to me in that room. He got scared, but he had no choice and left the room. I decided to wait for him. One hour had passed, but my room neighbor still didn’t show up. Then I thought to myself, “How much blood they have taken from him after such a long period of time? It’s been two hours and he still hasn’t returned from that terrible procedure!” Finally, I saw the doctor, who was checking the medical condition of all the patients and asked her, “Did you see my friend Alex? He went to the blood test two hours ago and still hasn’t come back.”

The doctor answered, “Your neighbor lost his consciousness during the test. He is lying on the first floor and we are waiting for him to come round.”

Then I thought that they must have stolen Alex’s blood too!