The ICU, for most people, this place brought about endless despair.
They would enter the ICU in despair, receive treatment in despair, and hope to get better in despair. They would also be in despair when they see other patients leaving the ICU, as they wished to be in their place.
Young Feng, though, was used to being outside the ICU.
She was holding a large pork trotter and enjoying it. It was as if she was eating a rare culinary delight that was hard to come by. Truth be told, this was her best meal this week. The pork trotter was tender and flavorful, and the tendons could be bitten off in one bite. It was salty and aromatic due to the braised soup.
“If I knew that the hospital is selling pork trotters, I would have bought it every single day.” Young Feng was regretting her bad judgment.
Financially, she was not really in a bad place, or you could say that ever since she was young, she never felt the lack of money. Hence, even though her husband needed a lot of money for his treatment, Young Feng had the feeling that the money would eventually come back. This was because she grew up in a rich family.
So, even though they were not working and merely using up their savings, and even though their savings, which used to be seven figures, had gone down tremendously, Young Feng was not fretting too much over it.
However, Young Feng was feeling a little tired after taking care of her husband alone in the ICU for so many days. Sometimes, when she had the time, she would sit alone and read a book, sneak out and watch a movie or cry for no reason. After doing these things, she would feel better upon returning to the ICU.
“Madam Liu.” Doctor Yan had just exited the office, and he saw Young Feng sitting and eating a pork trotter alone. For some reason, he felt like greeting her.
“Doctor Yan.” Young Feng quickly wiped her mouth.
“Go ahead and continue eating. I’m just greeting you since you’re here.” Doctor Yan paused for a moment, and when he saw that Young Feng had placed the pork trotter back inside the plastic bag, he sat down and said with a smile, “You’ve not gone home for a few days. Why don’t you go back and take a good rest?”
“The hospital is my home now.” Young Feng flashed him a slight smile. It was an elegant one.
Doctor Yan could not help but be reminded of graceful female celebrities. When he first hit puberty, many of the graceful female leads in television series were virtuous and dutiful women. Doctor Yan could not get this image out of his mind, and Young Feng looked and acted just like one of them.
“Things are hard on you.” Doctor Yan sighed.
“People get sick. They also get old and die. There’s no helping it. Fortunately, people can only die once in their lives,” Young Feng spoke slowly, and her words left a lingering mark in Doctor Yan’s mind.
Doctor Yan shook his head. “Don’t think too much. Go back and rest. When the surgery comes, you won’t get to rest even if you want to.”
Young Feng was Young Dai’s only family member, and she would definitely have to wait outside the operating theater during the day of the surgery. And combined stomach and liver radical surgery would definitely take a long time.
Young Feng was a little tempted. She turned to look at the ICU and thought about it for a few seconds. She then nodded. “Alright, then. I’ll go back and wash up before coming back.”
Unlike ordinary family members of patients, she did not give the doctors a lot of reminders. She was also neither long-winded nor unable to make up her mind.
In Doctor Yan’s perfect world, every single family member would be like that. But Doctor Yan knew that Young Feng was only like this because she had gone through a lot in life. The more hope a person had, the more disappointed he would be.
“Doctor Ling will be personally operating on the patient, so the surgery will definitely go very well.” Doctor Yan had never said such things, but this time, he could not hold himself back.
As a doctor working in the ICU, Doctor Yan frequently tried to lower patients’ expectations. He would sometimes even extinguish the flicker of hope in patients’ hearts.
“It’s impossible for the patient to go back to the way he was before.”
“Total recovery is impossible.”
“If the patient is able to talk and understand what you guys are saying, it would be the best outcome already…”
Many times, while conversing with patients’ family members, Doctor Yan would use his words to show them how harsh reality was.
This time, however, Doctor Yan hoped that Young Feng could be more hopeful and fantasize more about things.
At least, fantasy would be more beautiful compared to reality.
Young Feng thanked Doctor Yan again. She smiled gracefully, and her smile lingered in Doctor Yan’s mind. “I hope so.”
“Doctor Ling is one of the top hepatectomy experts in Changxi province. There are even hospitals in Beijing hiring him for freelance surgery.” Doctor Yan did not want to say it, but he wanted to make Young Feng more confident in the surgery, and he was unable to hold himself back.
Young Feng’s experience changed a little. She looked at Doctor Yan. “I know that Doctor Ling is pretty excellent and that he frequently carries out freelance surgery in Wuxin City. But I didn’t know that he also operates on patients in Beijing…”
“He has done so more than once. From what I know, a department director of a General Surgery Department of a hospital in Beijing has specifically sought treatment from Doctor Ling. He was able to walk only a few days after the surgery, and he went overseas for treatment after that.” Doctor Yan lowered his voice a little and said in a mysterious tone, “You know, with the department director’s income and status, he would have had no problem seeking treatment overseas. But he ended up asking Doctor Ling to operate on him. So, it’s definitely a great thing that Doctor Ling is willing to operate on Yong Dai…”
Young Feng’s face slowly lit up as she listened to Doctor Yan’s words. She then realized that Doctor Yan was inching closer to her. She was embarrassed and said in a soft voice, “Doctor Yan, I have promised Young Dai that I would become a Buddhist nun if he dies before me…”
Doctor Yan was shocked. “Are there still… people who do this nowadays?”
Young Feng hummed softly in acknowledgment and said, “I’m not a good businesswoman. So, if Young Dai is no longer in this world, I’ll have to find a job. Nowadays, you have to get certified to become a Buddhist nun, so I’ll have a stable income. Moreover, if I stay in a temple, the other nuns and I can take care of each other, and I won’t have to resort to spending Chinese New Year alone…”
Doctor Yan did not know how to react.
…..
On Tuesday at six in the morning, Operating Theater 1 was brightly lit.
Two circulating nurses walked back and forth from the operating theater to the supply room.
Combined stomach and liver radical surgery was a rare surgical method in Yun Hua Hospital, and this was the first time it was performed in the Emergency Medical Center.
It was not because it was a top-notch surgery. Of course, it was quite top-notch, as it was made up of two Level 4 surgeries and required the knowledge it took to perform many kinds of surgeries. People in the Emergency Medical Center were worried because of how long the surgery would take and the wide assortment of medical fields required for the surgery to work.
Even though senior medical scholars had created classifications for surgeries, medical staff members, especially those working in tertiary Grade A hospitals, had their own ways of classifying surgery.
According to the classification method commonly used in China, hemihepatectomy was already a major, Level 4 surgery. Total gastrectomy and gastrectomy for gastric cancer were also Level 4 surgeries. However, in tertiary Grade A hospitals nowadays, even though it was not easy to perform well in these kinds of surgeries, it was not hard for a doctor to launch this surgical method.
Even if a person were to disregard other things, the First People’s Hospital of Wuxin City and Second People’s Hospital of Wuxin City were launching many Level 4 surgeries by inviting Ling Ran over for freelance surgery all the time.
However, pure hepatectomy was obviously nothing compared to combined stomach and liver radical surgery.
At least, it was much more large-scale. In the field of medicine, the difficulty level of surgery increased exponentially the greater its scale and the longer its duration.
The scale, as well as the difficulty of the surgery, could be seen from the number of nurses and anesthetists in the operating theater.
“Ling Ran has never carried out hepatectomy plus gastrectomy for the treatment of gastric cancer, has he?” The department director of the General Surgery Department squinted as he sat in a chair in the visitation room. He even looked a little bit sleepy.
“I remember that years ago when you operated on a patient with intestinal obstruction for the first time, you didn’t receive guidance from anyone either. You followed the instructions on a book, right?” Huo Congjun smiled, and as usual, his words were offensive.
“Things were different back then.” The department director of the General Surgery Department smiled. This was one of the achievements that he was the most pleased with from his younger years. If he were a renowned person, this would be part of his biography.
Huo Congjun smiled too. “How different can it be?”
It was not a secret that in the hospital, resident doctors would refer to books as the prescribed medication, and attending physicians would flip through the pages as they operated on patients. It did not seem to be wrong for a person to refer to books when he did not know how to do something. This was especially true for rare illnesses and symptoms. Even chief physicians would have to refer to books when the situation called for it.
The department director of the General Surgery Department, though, pursed his mouth and said, “There didn’t use to be so many cell phones. There weren’t cameras in the operating theaters either.”
Huo Congjun’s expression changed a little, but he showed no signs of trepidation. “Ling Ran is one of the top surgeons for hepatectomy and gastrectomy. It’s only natural that he would give the challenge of combined stomach and liver radical surgery a try.”
“You know what? You’re right.” The department director of the General Surgery Department was not doubtful of Ling Ran’s abilities. Yet, he could not remain as calm as he looked on the surface when the Emergency Medical Center was carrying out an extremely high-end general surgery.
