Dr. Shin Seonhan: The Doctor Who Sees The Future [EN]: Chapter 139

#139 Another Level (11)

‘Is this déjà vu?’

It’s a familiar scene.

A square space with sky-blue walls on all sides.

A large, shadowless lamp hanging from the ceiling illuminated the center of the room.

‘This is… exactly the same as the operating room from just now?’

A patient is lying under the shadowless lamp.

Around them, people wearing surgical caps are gathered, peering into the patient’s abdomen.

Everyone is wearing the same surgical cap and gown, so I couldn’t recognize them at first glance.

I took a step closer to take a look.

Surgeon = Professor Yang Pil-soon.

First assist = Chun Sa-yeon.

Second assist = Shin Sun-han.

And even the scrub nurse.

The personnel in the surgery I was just participating in are no different.

It’s as if they took a scene from the past and pressed Ctrl+C + Ctrl+V [copy and paste].

‘What’s going on? I’ve never seen a past scene replayed like this before…….’

Could it be that the pattern of my ability has changed?

Or maybe I’m missing something.

I turned my head to look at the patient’s age, gender, and name on the IV pole.

[15]

Jeong Sun-rye

F/72

Room 15.

The patient is still Jeong Sun-rye.

Everything is starting to look the same.

I looked around as if I were playing a spot-the-difference game.

Looking at the board on the wall, even the surgery date is the same.

But, in the midst of all that, there was one difference.

‘Wait… the surgery name is different!’ .

It meant that she had to come back to the operating room for hemostasis [the process of stopping bleeding] due to bleeding.

I was able to grasp the situation only after checking the clock on the wall.

[19:40]

It was about 6 hours into the future from now.

‘Reoperation!’ Re-op [a second operation performed because of complications from the first].

They have to do general anesthesia again, and they have to reopen the body that was once closed.

Jeong Sun-rye is already old and has heart problems, but a reoperation in just a few hours?

‘If this goes wrong, the patient’s prognosis [likely course of a disease or ailment] could get much worse!’

Swish-

I approached the surgical field.

As expected, the situation didn’t look good.

Tension filled the field, and the professor’s eyes were sharper than usual.

The same was true for me and Chun Sa-yeon, who were standing opposite each other.

The anesthesiologist leaned his head toward the field and shouted urgently.

“We’re continuing the transfusion and using a lot of medication, but the blood pressure isn’t stabilizing. Have you found the bleeding site?”

Professor Yang Pil-soon answered immediately.

“Please hold on for a moment, we’ll take care of it soon!”

Then, he uses one hand to scoop out the hematoma [a collection of blood outside of blood vessels] in the abdomen.

The air in the operating room becomes tense.

Perhaps because of the bleeding in the abdominal cavity, the blood pressure and pulse observed on the monitor keep trying to deviate from the normal range.

“Suction!”

“Yes!”

“Damn it, where the hell is the blood coming from?”

It was the first time I had ever heard Professor Yang Pil-soon use such harsh language.

That’s how difficult the situation is.

As the operating room became busier, my vision blurred and another screen unfolded.

‘……Where is this again?’

A small room.

Looking at the wall color and the table, it’s obviously our hospital.

Professor Yang Pil-soon is sitting in front of the table in the center.

Two guardians [family members] are sitting across from him with anxious expressions.

The professor’s mouth slowly opens.

“……For now, I think she’ll have to stay in the intensive care unit for a few days. It seems like the heart-related complications that we were worried about before the surgery have occurred.”

Then the daughter asks urgently.

“Could this be because of the reoperation? Huh? Is it because of the first surgery that went wrong!”

The son next to her quietly stops his daughter.

“Calm down.”

“How can I calm down right now!”

“Getting angry won’t change the situation.”

Of course, the son’s eyes are also gloomy as he says that.

Professor Yang Pil-soon opens his mouth again with a heavy expression.

“……As I said, patients with stents [a small mesh tube used to open up blocked arteries] in their hearts can be exposed to this risk after surgery at any time…….”

The professor’s words continue for a while.

But I can’t hear them.

The daughter covers her face and can’t speak, and this time the son asks in a trembling voice.

“Doctor. It’s only been two days since the surgery, but how many days do you think she’ll be in the intensive care unit? Will she be able to be discharged in good health?”

“The professor in charge of the intensive care unit will explain the details, but because of her age, the course may not be good.”

“…….”

“……I will come and check on her often.”

After a while.

A silence heavier than a thousand pounds filled the space where the professor had disappeared.

The daughter opens her mouth with a cracked voice.

“What about our mom?”

“We don’t know yet. She’ll recover well.”

“What if something goes wrong?”

“…….”

“I can’t send Mom away like this. She can’t just leave after being sick like this until the end, our mom……!”

The daughter’s voice gradually becomes filled with sobs.

A sadness as deep as the bottom of the ocean is felt by me as well.

At this time, the vision in front of my eyes blurs again, and it changes back to the operating room.

* * *

Flash-

I came back to reality.

The bright and cool operating room.

The stopped time starts flowing again.

I have scissors in my hand, and in front of me is the abdomen of patient Jeong Sun-rye, which is just beginning to close.

‘……I saw a future where the patient is in danger again!’

Thump, thump.

My heart is beating wildly.

It was the first time I had seen the future during surgery, so I was dizzy.

The tearful voices of the guardians still seem to linger in my ears.

‘Let’s get a hold of myself!’

I mustn’t be shaken.

I have to be calm, especially in times like this.

Because I am the only one who can change this future and save the patient.

I focused so that my hands wouldn’t be disturbed and thought.

‘If I summarize the future I just saw…….’

7:40 PM today.

Patient Jeong Sun-rye will undergo reoperation due to bleeding.

After that, she goes to the intensive care unit due to heart-related complications, and faces a situation where the patient’s life cannot be guaranteed.

―Medication to suppress blood clotting (Clopidogrel) [a medication used to prevent blood clots].

―Reoperation due to bleeding.

―Bleeding control.

―And heart-related complications.

Like gears that had been scattered were turning together, the pieces finally began to fit together in my head.

‘The bomb I was worried about exploded in the opposite direction!’

Let’s draw a tug-of-war in my head.

← : Bleeding

→ : Thrombosis [the formation of a blood clot inside a blood vessel].

These two problems are on a continuum [a continuous sequence in which adjacent elements are not perceptibly different from each other, although the extremes are quite distinct].

That’s why it’s the most difficult factor to control well during surgery.

← Let’s go to the left first.

What if the tendency for blood to clot becomes too weak?

The blood does not clot, so the bleeding does not stop easily.

If hemostasis is not achieved, surgery becomes difficult, and various complications can occur afterward.

→ Now let’s go to the right.

Conversely, what if the blood clots too well?

Hemostasis may become easier.

But the blood is too sticky, making it easy for blood clots to form.

If these blood clots block important blood vessels, they threaten life.

Q. Then, how sticky should the patient’s blood be before surgery?

A. Moderately!

Everything is like that, but this word is difficult.

Enough to stop the bleeding well, but not enough to cause blood clots!

It’s 5 million times more difficult than adjusting the temperature between hot and cold water in an old shower.

‘Jeong Sun-rye’s problem isn’t blood clots, but bleeding problems. So she’s going to have a reoperation…….’

Will this patient be okay while undergoing the reoperation process?

An elderly patient who already has heart problems and has a stent.

The various blood products and unstable blood pressure poured into the patient during the reoperation process due to bleeding are strongly related to heart-related complications after surgery.

The result is the future I saw.

‘Reoperation is not an option!’

I concluded that.

Of course, I may not be able to completely prevent heart complications.

However, to minimize the probability, the surgery must be completed cleanly in one go.

How?

Let’s prevent bleeding in advance!

That is the only best way now.

‘There must be a that I’m missing in this surgery……! I need to look at that again first.’

But there are several problems.

First of all.

I don’t know the bleeding site.

It wasn’t accurately revealed even in the dream.

I don’t even know where the blood is coming from, so how can I say let’s take another look?

Second.

Even if I find the bleeding site, I don’t know how to control it.

The professor has already left and only Chun Sa-yeon is left.

In other words, the tiger has left the cave and only the fox and rabbit are left [an idiom meaning the powerful person is gone, leaving only weaker people in charge].

Can Chun Sa-yeon control the bleeding site? It’s bleeding that will lead to reoperation, but with just a resident?

My head was complicated.

While I was thinking that.

Tak!

Chun Sa-yeon, who was sewing the peritoneum [the membrane lining the abdominal cavity], hit the back of my hand with a needle holder.

“What are you doing, not holding the thread?”

Chun Sa-yeon’s eyebrows are raised.

It seems like she’s angry even though I only focused on thinking for a few seconds.

“I can sew faster if you pull the thread next to me!”

Chun Sa-yeon started to corner me.

Is she thinking, ?