"We're going to see cool Max! He's some kind of doctor…"
This morning, Rostik tells his toy dragon Olo about his visit to the doctor. Last time, mom didn’t lie: Max wasn’t as scary as Aunt Tamara from the big, cold clinic... She stabs your finger painfully with a huge needle, drawing blood! Grandma says she's no good. But Max knows how to play, he has a t-shirt with cool cars on it, and he even has candy.
Rostik is getting ready for his appointment with surgeon Ponomarenko. "Good Max" is going to solve the little boys' urological problems. He does it unnoticed, while they’re under anesthesia. Max is popular with children because he’s always happy to see them too. He tries to make the meeting feel as little like a doctor’s visit as possible: always joking, talking about cars—no coincidence since they’re on his shirt. After all, he’s a PEDIATRIC surgeon.
— "While the little one is looking around, I chat with him, manage to take off his pants, and check everything I need to…"
Today, Rostik will have surgery, but neither he nor his dinosaur Olo know it yet. Max excitedly tells him about a magic machine that makes sweet inhalations, after which he’ll dream of cartoons.
Rostik even asks if mom and Olo can try it too! Rostik strokes Olo’s "hair" and instructs him, just like his mom always does. Today is an awesome day: mom didn’t go to work, she stayed with him to visit Max together. She even said she’d buy ice cream if Rostik behaves.
— "And we’ll give some ice cream to Max too…"
Mom and the doctor smile at Rostik, but in reality, no one feels like smiling. They discuss the surgery and anesthesia. A surgery at just 2.7 years old. Max reassures her, saying that for him, Rostik is already an "adult patient." The toughest cases are the newborn pathologies he operates on at just five days old.
Olo saw everything. How Rostik drifted into sleep, how they carefully, like a porcelain doll, dressed him in a sterile gown. How mom hurriedly kissed Rostik on the forehead with teary eyes, then grabbed Olo’s tail with trembling hands and placed him next to Rostik. They were wheeled into the operating room.
Inside, everything was blue and white, like a winter scene outside a window. The blinding lights on the ceiling shone like something out of a cartoon on an alien spaceship. A tray held some metal objects. On the monitor, zigzagging lines danced. Rostik lay motionless.
Max looked different—masked, dressed like everyone else, wearing a strange cap. He was serious. No jokes now, it seemed. A blade flashed in his hands, and... blood! Oh, Aunt Tamara would have been thrilled! But she’d never have been able to put Rostik to sleep as peacefully as Max did.
Poor Rostik, he truly believed there wouldn’t be any blood here… Such a betrayal. That’s how it always is with kids! But it doesn’t hurt him…he’s sleeping so sweetly…
Suddenly, someone confidently grabbed Olo by the tail again)))
Olo was placed into Rostik’s hands, and Rostik mumbled something in his sleep. He was still dreaming about something sweet, barely opening his heavy eyelids, smiling contentedly in his drowsiness.
Max carried them both out of the operating room. The little one was dressed, and his favorite toy was placed beside him. Mom, nervously twisting her shirt, couldn’t take her eyes off her son: it felt like an eternity had passed since her little boy had drifted into sleep. Olo didn’t understand her worry—he had kept watch over Rostik, and Max could be trusted. After all, a bad person wouldn’t wear a Lightning McQueen t-shirt!
Rostik, still half asleep, hugged Olo. He dreamed of a ride with cars where he and Max raced, while mom held pink cotton candy and said something...
— "Rostik! My boy…my sweet boy…"
— "Ma... ma…"
The boy had no idea how important that "sleep" was for him. Now, mom would be able to sleep peacefully too. His little boy’s future with grown-up issues would be just fine.
Rostik was discharged after just two days! He promised the doctor that he would draw his dream and the wild car races, and that he’d definitely come back to visit and show Max his toy cars.
After years of practice, Max has learned how to be "one of the kids" and turn everything into a game. It’s become a habit to work in "one-day celebration" mode: whether it’s a visit for surgery, or when a child ends up in the hospital on New Year’s, or when there’s real trouble—he’s seen enough of it, especially back in Luhansk...
The moments of childlike trust and sincere affection are the most rewarding part of his work. He knows well that young patients are not naive; they feel and see everything. Sometimes they are braver and more serious than adults, and sometimes they ask the trickiest and sharpest questions. Finding a common language with each one is no easy puzzle, but the mountain of children’s drawings in his office shows that Max manages to be "a good guy" for all of them.
