I already wrote that I wanted to check out as soon as possible. This may seem strange: doctors are watching you, you can calmly read a book or surf the Internet. Yes, that’s all true. In addition, the doctor and nurses were very attentive and friendly. They understood perfectly well that they couldn’t just come to them and saw the condition of their patients. But the patients themselves scared me. For the most part these were men and women over 60 years of age. Let me remind you that I am only 47 years old. Many of them were diagnosed with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) many years ago. They coughed often, and very heavily, bending over in half. There were people coughing everywhere: in my ward, in any other ward, walking in the corridors, sitting in the dining room. If someone was discharged during the day, then a new patient was brought in in his place in the evening or at night. As I wrote earlier, up to 40 ambulances arrived a day with new patients. I used to go to the gym, communicate with friends and neighbors, I was surrounded by healthy people and I myself did not complain about my health. These people set goals and worked towards achieving them. Now there were only sick people around me, some of them had already reached the final critical phase of their illness… And I myself, as it turned out, was not entirely healthy either. All this created a depressing atmosphere. It depressed me that my neighbors in the hospital were here because they could die. Yes, I understand. This sounds impolite, even inhumane. Not all of them are to blame for their illness. 90% were smokers. These people, like me, ignored all warnings and killed themselves year after year with nicotine and carcinogens. A very small proportion had a predisposition to bronchial asthma from birth, and they got it, even though they had not smoked a single cigarette in their entire lives. But nevertheless, I did not see a single physically developed person, with big muscles or just slim and healthy looking. Almost everyone was very thin, hunched over, and they were constantly coughing. It felt like I was not in an inpatient hospital, but in a hospice. I was afraid of acquiring some new lung disease, but most likely in my subconscious I was afraid of becoming like them. I was afraid of turning into a constantly coughing old man… I believed that since I felt better after the IVs, then everything was not so bad with me, and I would live my old life. How wrong I was…
