Abstract
Vika began to tremble uncontrollably as the car her family spent their entire savings on approached the hospital. Although she willed herself to stop, her emaciated frame shook with the fear of what lay ahead. The hospital was, after all, where people in her village went to die. She could not remember the last person who went there and came home well. Vika had felt sick for a long time, with fevers, weight loss, and a pain in her side that never seemed to go away. She had returned home from the city after her husband and baby daughter died, and she had hoped the fresher air might do her some good. Now, she found herself winding her way along a bumpy road on what she feared might be the last trip she would make in her young life (Vika's real name has been changed to protect her privacy).
