They removed my left eye. They said it had burst

It was my birthday. The first one I’d wanted to spend at home. We woke up. Denys gave me flowers, an iPhone, a little cake — I blew out the candles.

Around two o’clock, Mom called, then a distant cousin. I went to the kitchen; we were talking on video. I propped my phone on the windowsill and was chatting with her.

At some point, the thought arose that I should go into the room. If I’d gone into the room, everything would’ve been fine.

An explosion happened. I didn’t hear it. I didn’t hear the missile flying, there was no sound. Everyone says there was an air raid alert. But honestly, I don’t remember it.

The phone fell off the windowsill, camera side down. My cousin didn’t see anything — she just heard some noise.

The way I felt it, I was thrown from the window and I fell. My husband says I was standing by the refrigerator but didn’t fall. He immediately ran from the room into the kitchen, to me.

I didn’t realize a missile had hit. I felt that my finger was broken. That was all I felt at that point.

By that moment, I couldn’t see anything anymore. I could only hear what was happening. Denys led me to the hallway. I was wearing only a T-shirt and shorts. He threw a jacket over me, tried to get shoes on my feet. He gave me a towel and told me to hold it to my face. I started touching my forehead and realized there was no skin. I became hysterical. Denys said: “Don’t touch anything — just hold the towel.”

We started going down the stairs. I didn’t understand what was in my way — I had to step over things, I kept tripping on something.

I said I couldn’t see; Denys said: “Easy.” He tried to keep me going, asked me to keep talking so I wouldn’t lose consciousness. I said I’d stay quiet: it was hard to breathe and talk at the same time.

We came out of the stairwell and stopped by a bench on the landing. At first, there was just noise and shouting. Then a woman or girl screams: “It hurts!” I became very frightened.

We got into an ambulance. They tried to treat my wounds there. I didn’t think it was that serious. I wasn’t even questioning why I couldn’t see anything.

First, they took me to “Kosmichka” (the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Children’s Clinical Hospital on Kosmichna Street — SP). I had wounds on my leg, neck, and chest. I remember them cutting my T-shirt, trying to clean the wounds. A piece of shrapnel was sticking out of my neck, near the carotid artery. They stitched me up without anesthesia, but I didn’t feel the pain.

That same day, they took me to Mechnikov Hospital. There they removed my left eye. They said there had been many fragments — it had leaked out, there was no saving it.

After the surgery, a doctor came to me and said: “We removed your eye.” Tears started flowing; I became hysterical. The doctor told the nurse: “Give her a sedative.”

When I came to, I said: “Don’t tell Grandma anything.” My grandmother has a heart condition; she’s 70. My only close relatives are my mom and grandma — they’re in Sievierodonetsk, in occupied territory. It’s very difficult to leave from there.

My mom was told, but because the connection in Sievierodonetsk is very poor right now, she didn’t call me right away. It was January 18 or 19.

The first conversation was pure emotion. Mom crying, trying to be supportive.

My aunt lived in Dnipro. She came to see me at the hospital. The department head started saying they were transferring us to Poland for treatment. I asked for my aunt to go with me.

We arrived in Lviv at a hospital — Denys and my aunt were with me. We spent two weeks in Lviv. Poland fell through, and they told us there was an opportunity to go to Austria for treatment.

Denys proposed to me. He said: “I don’t want to lose you.” We asked the doctors if I could leave the hospital. They said I could go for a short walk, get some fresh air. We went to the registry office and got married.

We bought sparkling children’s champagne, because I can’t drink alcohol, and some candy. Friends and parents congratulated us by phone. It was joyful on one hand, and confusing on the other. I’d wanted a celebration, lots of people, a white dress. I couldn’t put the ring on — my ring finger was the one that was broken. But everything’s ahead of us; it’s healing now.

It was very hard for me to accept the decision to leave. Denys couldn’t come with me — men aren’t allowed out. He said: “Right now, you need to put everything else aside and focus on your health.”

When the ambulance came for my aunt and me in Lviv, we stood by the car for a very long time, hugging. I cried hard. By that point, I could already see with one eye. My vision had returned while I was still in Dnipro.

On January 29, we arrived in Austria; on the 31st, there was a major surgery. It lasted seven hours — they removed a shrapnel fragment from under my right eye. During the second surgery, they removed two fragments from my neck and shoulder, and fixed my finger.

Treatment is ongoing. Eye prosthetics are scheduled for May. After that, they’ll do plastic surgery on my face and body to remove the scars. I should be here approximately until the end of July.

Since the explosion, there hasn’t been a day I haven’t cried. I constantly regret what happened. At first, I blamed myself — why did we stay in that apartment.

Before the tragedy, we’d been thinking of moving: the apartment was big, more than we needed. But for some reason, that place held on to us.

Denys went back to Dnipro. He visited the apartment after the explosion. The kitchen was completely destroyed. The room where Denys had been during the blast was almost intact.

I want to go back to Ukraine. I think it won’t be Dnipro anymore. If not for this situation, I would’ve kept working and living there. Now I’m afraid to go there.

Many people tell me I was born a second time. The first time was enough for me.