“Mom, are you “died” or just sleeping? Mom, you won’t stop breathing, will you? If I behave well, they won’t cut off anything else from you, will they? If I hug you, won’t it hurt you?” – 5-year-old George walks around his mother’s bed and tries to cheer up his mother. She took a strong painkiller, but the nasty pain that is tearing her from the inside does not calm down. She worries because her children are witnessing this.

16-year-old Beka has never taken a single step on his own. He doesn’t know what it’s like to play football with boys. He can only dream about it. He used to dream about it more often, he even asked his mother to sit him next to the window so that I could see the children who were chasing the ball like crazy. He was sure that soon his legs would be able to support him. Over time, it became more and more painful for Beka to look at the frisky boys … And now, even from the screams coming from the yard, tears well up in his eyes. He knows he will never be able to play football. But at least walk a few steps on his own – is that possible?

“You have no idea how much my feet miss the ground. My feet haven’t walked on it for so long. I really want to see my yard, look at the village. But I lie alone in bed all day. I can’t even turn down the volume on this damn radio – it’s been yelling since yesterday and it’s driving me crazy. Wouldn’t it be better if the stroke completely killed me? Now I am neither alive nor dead. (Marina cries).

“They say a person can endure hunger for 30 days. I starved for seven days – I could not stand it anymore. Then I lost consciousness. What to do, there was no one to ask for bread … I was embarrassed to ask. So, I kept starving… When I felt bad, I left the house, and I don’t remember anything what happened after that…”- tells us a 52-year-old woman – Lela Osepashvili – who was completely exhausted by a long illness and was left without hope because of loneliness. She weighs only 42 kilograms. Lela has breast cancer. She also had a stroke, and her speech has not fully recovered. Besides that, she suffers multiple diseases: inflammation of the gallbladder, rheumatism, vein disease. Due to a decrease in immunity, she often catches colds and suffers from pneumonia.

Anastasia has had a sore throat for the second week now. She no longer has the strength to even cry. Swallowing and chewing hurt her. Even drinking water hurts.
Anastsia (6-year-old): Look, it’s like I have fire and knives in there. As if someone walks there and bites me. I can’t stand this pain anymore, even talking hurts me.
Ilina: Is this life? I can’t take my child to the doctor: there is no money either for a doctor or for transport. The neighbors said they would raise money and help us. God, not the kids! I am ready to get sick myself, not to eat myself, but the children… They suffer so much.

“My neighbor found me lying on the floor, unconscious. I was taken away by the car of the disaster center… I don’t remember anything… The operation lasted more than seven hours. They returned me from the next world… But maybe death would be better than such a life?! – Ms. Leila told us before the interview began – “It was already the second operation last year that I had. First they gutted my stomach, then they opened my skull. Now I’m like this – exhausted, gutted. I can’t even lift two kilograms.”