Gogol-Mogul

I was around 13 years old when there was a need to remove my tonsils.   They had become very enlarged and were causing difficulty in breathing.   It was autumn.   You won’t believe it, but the surgery was performed without anesthesia or painkillers. It was the most painful operation of my life.

After the surgery, I had a persistent fever, and I was transferred to another hospital. I spent the entire winter there.   They tried various injections on me, but the fever persisted.   Blue spots started appearing on my body.   One day, a doctor came and said that I would be discharged and would recover at home.   I vividly remember walking home with my mother, smelling the scent of spring, with slushy wet snow under our feet.   My mother remained silent throughout the entire journey.

In our kitchen, there was a small box on the top shelf containing a cocoa powders called “Golden Label.”   Whenever one of us was seriously, really sick, my mother would make a drink called “Gogol-mogul,” which consisted of egg yolks beaten with sugar, milk, and that cocoa powder.

On that day, I received Gogol-mogul made from the remaining cocoa powder.

 

Now, I understand that I developed an allergy to some medication they gave me, which manifested as those blue spots.   It happens.   However, at that time, nobody knew about allergies, and the doctors concluded that I had a blood infection, which manifested as those bluish spots on the skin, and that I had only a couple of weeks left to live.

As I later found out, they informed my mother about it, and she took me home to die.   She thought that there was no point in keeping the chocolate powder anymore.

After they stopped giving me medications, everything gradually returned to normal.