Part 6
10 October 1991 Thursday
I wish I could say the rest of our trip to Karabagh was uneventful, but it wasn’t. We spent the remainder of our time in Karabagh visiting as many hospitals, schools, and orphanages as possible.
The word got out. Somehow the people of Nagorno-Karagagh heard about the savior from America who brought life and hope to the people of the region. By now I lost count of how large our group had become, but needless to say we travelled with numerous bodyguards anywhere we went. Changing our route daily and sleeping in a different home every night.
We were greeted by hundreds of people at every school, orphanage, hospital and community center we visited. The streets would be lined with people waving and cheering the Doctor and his wife. Wherever we went, Mom would be given so many flowers she could not hold them all. If you laid them flat on a table they would measure 1 yard long, by 2 feet deep by 2 feet high. Sadly, she used too many of these flowers to place on freshly dug graves.
Unfortunately, despite the triumph by the stream, the war continued. Dad spent our remaining time assessing the needs of the military hospitals and performing impromptu lifesaving emergency surgeries. Each day brought new challenges and difficulties. Dad’s legal pad was getting filled up and at this rate would need a second. Hospitals were in short supply of vital life-saving supplies. This only strengthened dad’s resolve to get the people of Karabagh what they needed to push back the invaders.
Dad before an unscheduled emergency surgery giving “that look.”
24 October 1991 Thursday
Our return flight to Yerevan from Nagorno-Karabagh was delayed several times due to weather and reports of Azeri troops in the area. We were exhausted, both emotionally and physically. Mom and I were ready to pass out, but dad seemed to have the energy of a teenager.
He had already begun to plan which of his friends he was going to contact, once back in California, to get the supplies that were requested of him. His job wasn’t done. He wasn’t done.
We arrived back at our hotel in Yerevan midafternoon via helicopter. For what we had been through I didn’t notice or care about the smell of kerosine or leaking hydraulic fluid during our flight.
Dad wasted no time getting on the phone to a pharmacist friend of his in Fresno. “Noubar, I need some statins (cholesterol medications). Can you mail me some right away? There is a Colonel who could use some, he helped us out a lot on our trip . . .”
Dad and I standing in front of “Dadik and Babik”
