What can be hidden behind the sign "VIP"? The story of the victim of a fashionable clinic
Tatiana Bateneva, "News of Science" http://inauka.ru/VIP services, VIP specialists and closed places "for special people" – all this is now the reality of our life.
This sector is developing especially rapidly in aesthetic medicine – where the bodies of wealthy Russians are treated, improved and improved. What can be hidden behind the sign "VIP", says journalist Elena Kudryavtseva.
Mirror Truth
One morning you stop at the mirror and see with horror what you have turned into. Fat woman! And fullness is old age. And old people cannot exist in the world of Western corporations, and you fly out of the cage, as in sports.
The next day I meet a young colleague. She is slender as a chip, and recently she was fat as a Shamakhan princess. I ask: "How did you manage to lose so much weight?!" In response: "I won't say, as a doctor, I can't." I "get" it for the third time – an excellent result. The princess opens the most popular gloss, points her finger at the half strip. VIP clinic advertising.
I immediately call the specified phone number. Twice I am forwarded to other numbers. I call the name of the "princess" ("she was your patient") – a pass through the "border". Finally, I am assigned. And at 20.00, as I ask. This is very important – I barely have time after work, even by taxi.
The clinic is located in a very solid Stalinist house with a front garden and a closed parking lot. You can only go through the list: I was included in it. I can already feel the spirit of the team – I'm with them. I walk into the luxurious front door. Another check. The guard lifts in the elevator. A solid door to Sesame is opened by a thin middle-aged woman. A huge apartment with a reception room, two offices and a kitchen. A child's voice is heard from there.
I am looking forward to meeting with the doctor, the arbiter of my fate. Weight loss – lightness – different clothes – interesting work! Hurray! I'm not leaving the circle! The woman, without introducing herself, quickly leads me to an office with a modern computer, some kind of bulky installation and a chair - a web of wires and headphones. They put them on my head. The woman explains everything: this is the latest technique for diagnosing the main organs with the help of signals passing through the body. It was created at the Siberian Scientific Center.
Click – and a beautiful picture of my brain appears on the monitor. Triangles flare up in places with pathology. There's almost nothing wrong with the brain. Next – throat, thyroid, lungs, liver. Then I tensed up. Many years ago I had jaundice, I have been suffering from cholecystitis all my life. But it carries – on the screen the liver is pink and clean. But the intestines – the whole picture is in darkly flashing triangles.
The woman explains: "These are the simplest." What a horror, where did I get worms from?
– But you eat a lot of fresh greens, it is often fertilized with non-rotten organic fertilizers. Everyone has it now.
I forget about my well-known sores. When the doctor – the owner of the clinic calls me, I just think: what have I come to!
I believe in transformation
The chief's office is strikingly different from the diagnostic one. Luxury furniture. Diplomas and certificates are on the walls. Everything is filled with expensive souvenirs: heavy pieces of crystal, Neuchatel watches, Mont Blanc pens. The mobile phone is unprecedented. There is a globe bar in one corner and a mini golf in the other. And – no signs of medicine.
The main one is handsome, tall, young, with a European face. He is nice, calm, and knows how to conduct a secular and scientific conversation. He talks about studying abroad, about cooperation with Siberian scientists, skillfully turns the conversation to me. Problems are divided into one-two-three.
– We will solve everything, in a couple of weeks the exchange will begin to change. You will lose weight and will no longer get fat. Of course, you can't do without restrictions in the diet.
I believe, I believe, everything is correct, everything is in accordance with modern scientific ideas, no devilry, ancient Chinese medicine at the modern level.
Here it is, salvation!
Aluminum boxes with colorful stickers are taken from the cabinet to the table. I read everything – typically professional instructions, composition, permissions...
By ten o'clock in the evening I have 6 bags of capsules in my bag, marked by Sergey Ivanovich – N 1, 2, 3, 4, and instructions on when and what to take.
Oh, by the way, about the simplest. Terribly embarrassed. Just a recipe – drink, and everything will pass. Sergei Ivanovich has three thousand of my units in his wallet. He kindly offers a ride home. How lucky to get up at six tomorrow. We go down to the car. In the dark I see – bah! – "Maybach"! Just yesterday I read about him in Autorevue. This is the first dozen in Moscow. At my remark, "Well, you give!" the modest man looked down. We're going home.
New Year's Eve is a crazy time: annual events, the end of the budget, gifts, calendars, completion of contracts... But every two hours, as instructed, I wash down capsules of different colors on the go. I don't feel myself, I have to do everything in time – negotiations with Khabarovsk in the morning, with the West in the evening. Phones are ringing at the same time: general, personal, mobile, handset for moving around the office. Everything is smoking, everything that was not done in time falls on my head. Home only to sleep. A week later, I get a second to stand on the scales – NOTHING!!!
I'm calling the VIP clinic. In response: don't worry, it doesn't matter, we'll change the scheme. Only it's not Sergey Ivanovich who is dealing with me anymore, but Irina Vasilyevna. He consults by phone, changes medications, the courier brings them to the office, takes the money for Sergey Ivanovich.
I'm not feeling well.
The New Year is coming. The day of summing up the results in the company, the evening of a festive performance (this is not a drunken corporate party), meetings with colleagues from other cities. One such day a year. The best.
In the morning, at the pace of jazz, I'm going to a holiday, I get on the scales – and HOORAY!!! – six kilograms minus! I'm calling Irina Vasilyevna. She says with relief: yes, the process has started. We must continue, everything will be fine.
The day passes quickly. In the evening we go to a hotel near Moscow. On the ice of two lakes there will be a holiday with treats, competitions, figure skaters, singers, then fireworks! Everything is deserved, what good fellows we are.
After official meetings at the hotel, somehow I feel unwell. I haven't eaten anything but "happiness pills" all day. We go to the frozen lakes. All in torches, beautiful heated tables, teams of huskies, young people in masks and wigs. The snow shimmers with different colors. Everyone is cheerful and sober, only mulled wine is served.
I don't want anything, I try to smile when they take pictures, but it doesn't work. I feel my head spinning, for some reason my face starts to burn. Then I'll see myself in the photos with a brick face, and now it's getting worse and worse.
I'm driving to Moscow after midnight. Then I remember vaguely, but I lost weight day after day. They called from the clinic and were terribly happy: everything is fine, everything is under control! Four days later, a therapist from our polyclinic accidentally stopped by the office. She met me in the hallway and gasped: what's wrong with you? You have a terrible face!
Right on the table in the conference room, she probed my liver. For the first time after a long break, it was greatly increased. The next day they took tests from me. And after they were ready, my doctor-savior insisted on the hospital, where I ended up with a diagnosis of acute hepatitis, drug poisoning.
The liver is like a sieve
I'm not a vindictive person. I called the VIP clinic from the hospital, told them what had happened and that I would not come to them again.
The "Princess" sympathized with me, and together we decided that everything that happened was connected with the peculiarities of my body. And she tried again to get the same VIP course, because she got fat again.
After a few days of taking Chinese-American drugs, she could not get out of bed, and her husband, a candidate of medical sciences, cursing, threw all the pills into the garbage chute.
I continued to be treated for several months and met with many victims of such clinics. And when I came to myself, I realized that mine had simply disappeared: there were no ads, no phones, no doctors. I had a laparoscopic examination of the liver – the results were horrifying. The liver turned into a sieve, half of the cells died.
Almost another year has passed. I still have the strictest diet (now I've really lost weight), constant sweat, nausea and weakness, weakness, weakness...
Questions I forgot to ask
And for a whole year I've been digging into the past and asking myself questions that have no answer.
Why didn't I think that a normal clinic should have at least a sign? Why did I immediately believe the certificates and diplomas? I can make at least a hundred of them on my printer myself.
Why didn't I check if there is a permit from the US Federal Agency for Medicines and Food for "magic" capsules? Why were there no markings on the capsules, and on the boxes I did not check the dates of manufacture, the period of use, the serial numbers?
Why didn't I sound the alarm when the computer – the "miracle of diagnostics"– didn't notice my unhealthy liver? Why didn't you ask which institute made this car? And what does worms have to do with it, it could be checked by passing tests in a normal laboratory.
Why didn't she suspect anything when she saw one of the most expensive cars in the world at the director of a small "apartment" clinic? Why didn't you remember that if an advertisement is placed in a magazine, then the editorial board is not responsible for it?
Why, finally, wasn't I surprised that the lovely doctors, just fathers and mothers, didn't come when I got sick? It's all my fault. And I wrote about this story to warn others.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru/06.10.2008