So here's me being pretty much absent from forum for a while. Here's why and also it'll give you a slight clue as to how things are done here in Sevastopol.
Covid. The original Sputnik vaccine has proved quite successful in holding back the plague. Not perfect, but pretty good. Problem was, and is, I'm too old to get the vaccine and VCO refused to get it if I couldn't get it so we patiently waited for Sputnik Light to be available.
That worked real well. Because of another health problem my happy little butt was in Hospital #4 and Oncology Hospital, #4 five minutes from the digs, Oncology on south side IOW a pain in the nether regions to get to. With several CAT scans, blood tests, heart tests and one minor operation to remove a little something lodged in my shoulder we were in both facilities often and I got the first chemo blasts in late September. Prognosis looked pretty good from the chemo. However, neither Hospital was particularly concerned with mask regime and distancing and it is now patently obvious that both facilities were prominent in spreading the plague all over this village. And of course where I went VCO went, my Russian is just enough to confuse the road cops on the rare occasion we are stopped, read twice in 8 years, therefore whenever I needed to go in for tests and/or treatments she was by my side.
Morning of 09 October VCO was suddenly quite ill, I mean really ill. Called the local mobile Doktors, they arrived in 10 minutes, took one look at my lass, tossed her in to the ambulance and took her to Hospital #1 in City Center, the special quarantine, isolation and treatment facility. She called me about an hour after she arrived at #1 and said she'd be in there for minimum two weeks, she had covid and pneumonia, the second disease quite often a tag along with the virus and actually kills more than the virus. She advised I call the nanny for the children and arrange for her to come to the house and live there while we were in Hospital, her clearly saying since she had both diseases so did I. With six children to take care of plus two 'kat things' all had to have daily care and feeding. I called the nanny, she was reluctant to come to the digs because of the plague all over Sevastopol and her flat was about as far as one can get from us in this village ergo she had to come by publik bus and ferry. I simply offered enough money for her to flutter on over to the compound, she arrived on the tenth.
Morning of 10 October I knew I had it but I waited until around noon to call Mobile Doktors. They arrived, took about five seconds to check me, tossed me on a gurney and shoveled me in to ambulance. Doktor in ambulance called Hospital to tell them I was on the way, Hospital said 'get your ass moving, his wife is dying'. Ambulance took off with lights flashing and klaxon screaming, we turned off Ulitsiya Nekrasova on to the main drag on northside, Ulitsiya Bogdanova, and ambulance was joined by two police cars, one in front and one behind, all three vehicles with lights going and noise makers howling. Locals probably thought VVP and Lavrov were on the way to Hospital.
Got to Hospital #1, ambulance was met by four strong young men, said men yanked out the gurney, picked it up and at a dead run took my sorry ass in to Hospital. Soon as we hit the doors a massive wheel chair was produced, with a Doktor. Doktor spoke enough English that combined with my meager Russian he made certain I knew that VCO was in very bad shape. Two of the 'strong young men' picked up the wheelchair and literally ran down the halls with Doktor. Took me in to VCO's treatment room, Doktor treating her asked 'Is this him?' and when answered in the affirmative told me to get over to her and talk to her. The two men stood me up and helped me over to my lass (by that time I was so ill I could not stand or walk). I looked at her and my first thought was 'I'm too late, she's gone.' but I took her hand anyway even though the machine she was hooked up to was monotone and flat lined. Doktor told me later that he'd never seen the like, he clearly stated that he thought she was dead, too, but when I took her hand he could see the life force coming back to her. After a couple minutes she kinda half opened her eyes, gave a tiny smile and grumped a little: "What took you so long? Thought I would die waiting for you!" Neither I nor the sawbones told her how close she was to death until several days later when she was much better.
Covid Treatment at Hospital #1.
Facility is locked down tight, only entrance without a kazzilion stamped and approved documents is the ER entrance and if you come to ER entrance you better be in a meat wagon. Armed guards were everywhere including ER, no one allowed anywhere on Hospital grounds, period, let alone actually in Hospital without documents and permissions. Actual Hospital Staff is all women from head Doktor down to the scullery maids and toilet cleaners.
Treatment protocol is 16 days and intensive. By law, once in you can't leave until Hospital completes the protocol and gives permission to leave, one can't even open a door for a breath of fresh air, it ain't allowed. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are delivered to each inmate by name on the plastic box containing the food. Food sucked shit through a straw and VCO and I fixed that little problem the day we were discharged. Food is way better now, different catering company and actually delivered warm since we exited the facility and someone is in pretrial detention to this day.
Every morning at 05:00 or so Godzilla's Bride stomped in to each room (4 men or 4 women in each room) and gave everyone an under the skin injection right next to the belly button plus whatever other injections needed for each inmate, other injections administered to the butt. Same spot on the belly for 16 days is loads of fun by the fifth day. Four times a day medicines were brought and administered to each inmate and since I have another problem besides covid and pneumonia I was treated three times a day with a nifty little machine that gives you special lung and heart meds as you breathe from it along with other meds for that problem.
Doktors come in minimum twice a day and do a pretty thorough job of examining each inmate, asking the proper questions and making succinct notes on each chart. Everyone complained about the food, sometimes one didn't even know what it was and many of the inmates had a special diet. I didn't have special food but still, I've never seen light yellow bread (dry as old bones, too) or green/black 'borscht'. Good thing is we can have food brought in and by the second day VCO was well enough to be up and about. She called couple Navy lads we know and they every couple days brought us dinner from Rusburger, fully loaded burger and fries. Food and other goodies are delivered to the guards, guards check to make sure contents of the parcel pass muster and then guards bring the goodies in and hand it personally to the inmate. Worked for us but we still fixed the food problem the moment we were discharged.
Medical Sisters were all very good as was the chief Doktor, very polite (with the glaring exception of Godzilla's Bride who seemed to take special joy in the blunt needle injections from her) and helpful. Since VCO was moved to a girl's room across the hall from mine on the third day, she spent a lot of time with me. Sisters even brought in a chair for her to sit in while we talked and read to each other. She bounced back quickly from her initial severe reaction to virus and pneumonia and by the fifth day was her usual smiling self and soon busied herself with helping some of the more frail women on our floor. Boredom is a big problem in such a Hospital, no TV, no radio, nothing. We men could cope with it better than the women so she ended up reading a lot to the older women, too.
Hospital had been completely overhauled in summer of '19 and I mean completely, ground up. I well remember what that hospital looked like back in orc times and it weren't pretty (we had an elderly neighbor who was there for treatment), I've seen better in the wilds of Afrika and SA. Everything is now clean as a whistle, straight as an arrow and all machines of any kind are Siemens, new and state of the art.
All this being said, we all were locked up for minimum two weeks and some longer. Cell phones were allowed but no other devices. There was a microwave near the floor main desk but not available to us inmates. Two weeks and more of staring at the walls or wistfully gazing out the window is rarely passed off as fun, but the cure in the end was worth the hassle. And none of us died. Cost? Zero. All health care here is Government paid as long as you signed up for Government Insurance which we did while the dust was still settling from Russian Spring and for emergencies like this Covid Plague all is paid anyway. Hospital takes care of all that paperwork so we inmates didn't see a damned thing but the 'sign here to say you were here' one page form they bring around the moment you are lucid enough to understand what you are signing.
In the end VCO and I were discharged on the same day. Our discharge documents clearly state we are covid free 'forever' so we won't need those silly 'qr' codes, we just carry copies of our discharges with us. However. I know many of you don't want the vaccine but don't be foolish. It took us two months to get our sense of taste back and one month for the sense of smell and over two months to get a modicum of energy back. I almost lost my wife to this disease and pneumonia and I can assure you that if I knew how bad this crap is I'd have ignored the 'you're too old for Sputnik' and gotten it one way or the other for both of us and I know I could have with no problems. I don't know what kinds of treatments many of you in other countries would get but I know from just reading the news most of you would get nowhere near the level of treatment VCO and I got. Don't be foolish, if you can get Sputnik, get it!
As an aside, our nanny did not come down with the virus but sadly our yellow girl, Ella, died while we were in Hospital. She was not old, only 9, and the picture of health and vigor. She just didn't wake up one morning (unbeknownst to me) and VCO quietly arranged for our usual Navy burial detail to take Ella up in the hills overlooking Inkerman and put her to rest with her mother, father and little Misha, her son who died so young.
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lancelot
I had 2 vaccine shots and it appears to have helped in limiting the severity but it still isn't something that one could remotely consider pleasant. Good luck with the other too, my maternal grandmother used to say that getting old was hard work. 
