Over the weekend, I made appointments with the necessary doctors in advance. Namely, an ophthalmologist and a neurologist. The hardest part was finding an opportunity to get an MRI. For some “inexplicable” reason (the mobilization law), MRI appointments at all hospitals were booked up a month in advance.
I spent almost the entire Saturday on the phone trying to find a way to get an MRI within the week. Out of fear, I found three such places and made reservations, planning to cancel the other two later.
On Sunday, I learned from my friend Victor (name changed for security reasons) that migraines are unlikely to be a reason for me to be deemed fit for rear service. The law stated that periodic episodes of epilepsy make you fit for rear service. As I understood it, if you have epilepsy once a week, you are fit for rear service, but if you have it every day or more often, then you are not fit at all. There was nothing about migraines. There was also nothing about the fact that I lose consciousness from being in the sun for a long time. Therefore, Victor said that our main chance was my eyesight. I really do have such poor eyesight that without glasses I can’t see well beyond 2 meters, that is, very blurry. Already at 2-3 meters, I can’t recognize people’s faces well, but I can see their silhouettes and gait style well. I can’t see the bus number (because of this, it’s very difficult for me to catch buses without glasses). Victor said to me, “Look, Sergey, your glasses will fly off in the trenches, and where will you shoot?” “Well, really,” I thought, “if I imagine myself in a trench without glasses, I can only see blurry smudges 30-40 meters away. What kind of assault soldier would I be?”
I knew for sure that I had had astigmatism since childhood. Victor found the relevant article in the law. In order to be recognized as fit for service in the rear, I needed to have the following diagnosis: Astigmatism of any type with a refractive difference in the two main meridians of more than 3 diopters. I was simply sure that my vision was probably even worse. So I set myself the goal of finding the best clinic possible, whose diagnosis would definitely be accepted by the medical commission. I found a great German-British clinic, which was actually a whole research center.
And so, having planned to go first to the ophthalmologist, then the neurologist, and then for an MRI on Monday, I left the house.
I went to the village council at 8:00 in the morning and picked up my summons. There was a kind of gloomy solemnity in all this. I took the summons with me in case the TCC officers caught me, so I could show it to them and say that I was going to the TCC. It was scary, but some force protected me. When I entered the subway, I saw four TSK officers in front of me, divided into two pairs. Each pair had already caught their victim and was talking to them. So I just walked between them.
Because of COVID and then the war, I hadn’t been to Kyiv for a very long time. I arrived in the city at almost 12:00. And what I saw somehow struck me. There were almost only women on the streets. There were few men, and they were either schoolchildren aged about 15-20 or elderly men over 60.
I came to the clinic for an examination. It was a really cool examination, with lots of different devices, and they put drops in my eyes five times to dilate my pupils. After two hours of examination, the doctor came to me for a final consultation. In addition to my astigmatism, I was also found to have mild myopia and nearsightedness. During the consultation, I took out my phone with bated breath and read “Astigmatism of any type with a refractive difference in the two main meridians greater than 3 diopters” and asked if I had it. To this, I heard a confident answer from the doctor that this was not my case.
This news shocked me almost as much as the news about the draft notice. But I hardly reacted to it and calmly continued to talk to the doctor, and even began to ask him various questions about how to take care of my eyes and my vision. The thing was that I was so surprised and shocked by this news that I simply refused to accept this reality.
After leaving the doctor’s office, I gradually began to realize what had happened. And a real feeling of fear came over me. Now I saw no reason not to declare me completely fit for service, fit for the trenches and assaults. Then I looked closely at the diagnosis I had been given and saw that in my case the difference was 1.7, and in order to be deemed fit for rear service, it had to be 3 or more. So it turns out that according to the law, I was not only fit, but I was almost a sniper with eagle eyes 🙂
After that, I began to enter a state where you simply don’t even know where the exit is and how to find it. I went to a neurologist on autopilot, simply because it was planned. The neurologist turned out to be a very professional person. After I told her my symptoms, she said that I had a problem with one of the sections of my cervical spine. We had a good conversation. By the way, she said that the MRI I found was not of very good quality. She recommended another company to me. That company found me one available slot at 7:05 a.m. After that, overwhelmed by all the stress and events, I went home.
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