Today is the seventh day of the treatment, two days after the operation. Time drags by in the hospital when I regularly eat medicines, take injections and receive machine treatments.
Since the operation, I have been covered with bandages about my belly, neck and head, looking like a wounded soldier, who ran out of his spirits in battleground. My poor belly, which offered a kind of cells to the other two parts at the operation, has fallen into a very uncomfortable state, in which my wounds glued to the gauze bandages are torn apart from the gauze bandages every time I rise up from a chair or a bed.
The whole treatment is very dear, dearer than the sum of former cures put together. When the doctor proficiently calculated the expense of the treatment, mother and I held our breaths to see the final figure, flustered and drained of energy. As I expected, the final sum came out as a hungry boa, ready to swallow a lion’s share of my mother’s savings. It seemed ages that had passed before we gained strength to squeeze words through lips, pleading for a lower sum. The doctor eluded this in a detached, delicate manner. Pondering about the treatment and its price, mother sank into the bitter silence, wearing a wretched expression, her long hair disheveled, back bended and overcoat tiredly opened. For the first time in my life, I felt powerless before the harsh reality, powerless to continue and powerless to retreat.
