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Attention! Translation was done using AI, mistakes are possible
At the maternity hospital they said: “Consider giving him up — he won’t walk, won’t write, won’t read.” That wasn’t a decision we could envision — we decided whatever happens, happens.
Artem has organic brain damage. What goes on in his head is unclear to us. He’ll be sitting there, everything fine, and then a sudden mood shift. As our doctor put it: “He might suddenly stick his fingers in a power outlet, just like that.” You can’t have a conversation with him, he can’t explain his own condition, sometimes he just starts crying.
You can tell by looking that he has a disability. I see those looks on the street sometimes. In terms of self-care, he functions at a 9- to 10-year-old level. In terms of comprehension — even less. We also have a nine-year-old son. We realize he’s already more educated, smarter than Artem.
Around 17, Artem developed such aggression that it became unbearable. We were frightened and took him to the hospital. He spent three weeks there, and it was so horrible… His dad put Artem’s photo as his phone wallpaper. I’d look over at night, and he’s not sleeping — he’s talking to the photo. We said: “Give him back to us.”
Usually I go everywhere with Artem. But when he turned 18, our second son was still little, so my husband went to the military commissariat. I regret that now. The ENT doctor started questioning Artem: “How is it you can’t hear? Maybe you actually can? Let’s remove the device” — and so on.
They gave him a classification of “limited fitness.” How is that possible? An ENT doctor, more than anyone, should understand that cochlear implantation isn’t performed for a minor degree of hearing loss. They think we had this child and trained him to be deaf from birth so he could dodge the draft in the future.
We learned about the mobilization from TV. We weren’t worried about Artem — I thought “limited fitness” was essentially a white ticket, they wouldn’t take him. I was more afraid for my husband — he’s 53, he served as a private.
Then suddenly, on September 26 at 9 a.m., the doorbell rings. I open up — it’s our neighbor, pointing at the front door, and on the other side there’s a draft summons for Artem taped on with scotch tape.
I was terrified — I thought I was going to have a heart attack and a stroke. We called people we knew. Some said: “Go, they’ll sort it out.” Others: “Don’t go — that’s not how summonses are properly served.” I said to my husband: “Let’s not take Artem — let’s go to the commissariat ourselves.” At first we didn’t want to go, but I was scared — if we don’t, they’ll come later and start dragging him out of the apartment.
We went to the psychiatric clinic first. We were lucky with the doctor. “I’ll write you a document right now, don’t worry.” He’s a former military man himself. He said: “Good Lord, the last thing we need is to hand rifles to mentally ill people.” I asked if there had been other cases like this. He said there had.
My husband and I went to the commissariat. It was terrifying — lots of people with bags, buses standing there, I was shaking all over. In line ahead of us, a man was standing on crutches, most likely with cerebral palsy.
We got through the line to the woman processing documents and showed her the summons. She said: “He has category B — we’re not taking those for now.” I said: “Then on what basis did you send us a summons?” She said: “The mobilization was declared suddenly, we didn’t have time to review the files — we sent them to everyone.”
I said: “Can you guarantee he won’t be called up again?” She said: “Right now — no. But if it comes to category B, of course we’ll send him another summons.”
I explained that we have a person registered at a psychiatric clinic, that he’s deaf. She said: “He’ll go through the medical board — they’ll determine again whether he’s fit or not.”
We’re thinking of trying to go through the board earlier. To get his classification changed in the military ID. We know people whose deaf children also have a category B classification, and they’re scared too. Some have already received summonses; some are afraid to even come home.
How can you send someone like that to war? Artem doesn’t even understand what a weapon is — he could pull the trigger at any moment out of sheer ignorance.
What to do next, I don’t know. If my husband gets a summons, how will we even survive without him? We’ll have Artem’s disability pension and that’s it. Leave the country — where would we go with Artem? I already told them at the psychiatric clinic: “Soon I’ll come get documents for myself — I have no nerves left for anything.”
I’ll say something terrible: most people dream of their children outliving them, but I want to outlive my son. Because I don’t know what his life will be like without us.
