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#Libya #Gaddafi @jfjbowen: If you're going to read other reporter's notebooks, Mr Gilligan, you ought to ask what… goo.gl/fb/DraSE
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@perfectsliders EXCLUSIVE. Gadhafi's Ukrainian nurse talks about life with'Daddy'edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/eur… #Libya @Libya17Feb @TripoliPrisoner
Mogilnoye, Ukraine (CNN) -- In the Ukraine house where she grew up, Oksana Balinskaya's hazel eyes transfixed on television images of Moammar Gadhafi.
He was now a fallen leader, a fugitive sought for justice. He had been known as the ruthless leader of a pariah state, a butcher, a delusional man divorced from reality.
But Balinskaya, 25, who served as one of Gadhafi's five Ukrainian nurses for nearly two years, had always seen him in a different light.
She had checked his blood pressure, monitored his heart, stuck him with a needle to draw blood, gave him vitamins and pills for his ailments, though he didn't seem to have many. He was a healthy man.
She even called him "Daddy." All the Ukrainian nurses did. It was a nickname they used to speak about him among themselves, without attracting attention.
"Daddy gave us jobs, money and a good life," she said.
Far removed now from the sands of Libya, Balinskaya sat at the kitchen table with her Serbian husband, looking upward at the boxy TV set atop the refrigerator. Images of Gadhafi's fiery defiance flashed in the face of ouster.
She would feel sorry for him if he were killed or captured, she said.
"Gadhafi was quite considerate to us," she said. "He would ask us whether we are happy and whether we have everything that we need."
Every September, on the anniversary of his rise to power, Gadhafi presented souvenirs to his Ukrainian nurses and other members of his inner circle. Balinskaya received a medallion and a watch etched with his picture.
She took turns with the other nurses accompanying him on foreign trips, sometimes sparking rumors spread in the media about Gadhafi's harem.
All of what was being said about Gadhafi seemed contrary to what she knew about the man -- including the allegations by Gadhafi family nannies and domestic staff that they were tortured and abused.
Gadhafi, she said, always treated her very well.
Her job now lost to Libya's civil war, she pitied the nation.
"If it were not for Gadhafi, who else would have built it?" she said. "It was he who constructed it. He has transferred Libyans from camelbacks into cars."
