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East Midlands General Hospital, England, June 11th, 1999.
Thank you for coming in Artyom, I wanted to discuss the results of your biopsy. I'm afraid the result is... well... not what you were looking for.
Colorectal Carcinoma, yes... I know. How long do I have?
It's hard to say, from one healthcare professional to another... I'd say you have a sixty-three percent chance of living the next five years.
Now I'm sure you have lots of questions, is there any-
One question, am I still able to practice Pharmacy?
Well, uhm... I wouldn't have thought so at the moment, you're head will be spinning and then... the treatment.
And that's when my world ended, for the first time... at least.
"The food was pretty good, at least... when I could stomach it"
I think journaling will help me keep my remaining sanity, not as though I can do much else at present. I'm starting to lose myself here with the same scenery, clinical equipment and unfamiliar faces coming to check on me every hour of the day and night... taking my blood pressure, asking if I have any pain. My name is Artyom, Pavlovsky, I'm a registered pharmacist working, or worked rather, for the NHS here in England. As you can probably deduce from my name, I'm not natively English; I was born in a small village not too far from St Petersburg, Russia. My written English is a lot better than my speaking, I often have to repeat myself or ask for clarification, especially when it comes to all of these procedures they're putting me on. I studied and worked in Russia until I was 25, moving to the UK and taking a job in Critical Care Pharmacy... It was my job to review orders, often correcting, what the Doctors had requested with urgency, I swear, the amount of drug errors I've corrected and lives I've saved by putting a decimal point in the dosage section. I'm digressing, again... they have me locked up in this Oncology ward for "four to six months", Christ, if I thought Chemotherapy would be this rough I would've taken my chances with my own Leukocytes taking out this growth.
"Freedom, at long last!"
Of course then I did get to leave hospital, little thanks to the doctors who changed their minds over my course of treatment time and time again; no, I thank the nurses who looked after me, they were the true heroes. Since I had been out of practice for... what, six months I think it was, I needed to do some refresher training before returning to practice. This was easy, mind you, when you've been practicing for as long as I have the basics of pharmacology, half lives and drug interactions are just the fundamentals. I picked up quite a bit about medicine during my time admitted to that ward, I always enjoyed teaching those who would listen; Doctors, Nurses, Healthcare Assistants and the therapy team about subjects they wished to learn... perhaps I should go in to education instead. I have a whole new outlook on medicine now, I must admit, as someone who may come out of remission at any time, I feel more sympathy towards patients undergoing intense treatment, they're now more to me than drug orders on a screen, in a cold clinical lab. There was a position that came up on the Intensive Care unit in this hospital, a sort of Consultant Pharmacist role working directly with patients and nursing staff... I'll throw my hat into the ring and see where this goes.
"The Consultant Pharmacist will see you now"
I must admit, this role in Intensive Care was probably the highlight of my career. I had not been in a direct-patient position before and it was certainly a new experience for me, not only did I consolidate my knowledge in Pharmacology, I took additional courses in medicine to expand my own knowledge of medical procedures, an "all-in-one" practitioner if you will. The best moments, as any Emergency Department practitioner will tell you, is those moments where you must act quickly to save a patients life... often in my case, this was sourcing the drugs required to keep a patient from crashing... adrenaline, metaraminol and IV fluids were my often go to, certainly worked for those hypotensive cases. I'm a nomadic man when it comes to interpersonal relationships, I have no wife, no children... my parents I saw perhaps once or twice a year, and this I was happy with. In any case, I had no real ties to the United Kingdom apart from my working life, in essence, I could pack up and leave at any time. This of course, would be foreshadowed later on in my time line, up at this stage I was none-the-wiser. Of course, as we all know, this period of serenity would not last long.
"The end of the world, for the second time"
I remember the chaos, the horror and the desperation of humanity to keep going; at first I couldn't quite believe what was happening. I was at the hospital at the time, enjoying a well-earned break when a sudden flood of patients came rushing through, the emergency department completely overrun with trauma patients and people flooding onto the main corridor and through the other wards, all desperate to keep living. We turned on the TV, all channels spoke only of invasion, and for the next seven hours we all assumed this was Armageddon. Almost seven hours, to the second, a previously unknown man by the name of Wallace Breen pasted his tattered old face across all broadcasting channels across the world. He claimed to make a deal for humanity, to save our species in return for complete subversion to the "Combine", little did we know what hell this would place us in, for the last of humanity.
"Blue isn't my colour"
I started in City 3, this was near my home town; I felt a sort of comfort being amongst familiar streets, even if these streets were plastered with alien propaganda and unfamiliar technology. My Slavic culture has taught me to tow the line with authority, much like my parents did with the Soviet Union. I carried this with me where ever I was relocated, of course, I didn't bother making friends... no real point if at any time, for any reason at all, you could be transported across the world. My next "relocation" was City 24, I must admit that this was my favourite of my stream of forced habitations, the conditions were nice and the rations weren't too bad. Before my relocation I did as all unemployed denizens did, attend work cycles in exchange for food vouchers... though I found this hard, my brain is my greatest muscle and I have little in terms of manual strength, I would often finish these shifts exhausted and sore. City 24 provided me with an opportunity to do work more familiar to me, a position as an Intern came up within the Civil Medical Union; this was a no-brainer decision for me, despite starting back at the bottom, I thought, this would be a better use of my skills than the labour shifts I was all too familiar with.
"My home, my family; dysfunctional, broken and sibling-rivalry."
The conditions aren't the best, I thought, the equipment barely works and we are understaffed... but it is home to me. I've seen some practices that would shock even the most basic developing-countries healthcare system, yet, I wouldn't chance it for the word. City 24 was by far the most advanced, I followed the team from 24' to City 8, and finally Terminal 7 where as it stands, the equipment is downright archamedian! The doctors fight with each other, especially between the Medical and Research Branch, but I have no issues with anyone, in a twisted way, we're all one forced-together work family. I am not a political man, but I know that this "government's brutality would make the Soviet Union blush, I am by no means a loyalist, but I will continue to keep my head down to survive in this regime. I am ever cautious that my cancer could come back at any time, and I'm worried that this terminal does not have the resources or expertise to treat it, I feel almost as though I'm a ticking clock.
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