Dr. Shin Seonhan: The Doctor Who Sees The Future [EN]: Chapter 151

#151 Happy Birthday (10)

“The biggest problem… Senior, what is it?”

Song Yu-ju asked, staring intently at us.

It was as if she was asking if we didn’t see the obvious answer right in front of us.

Ahn Gyeong-sik stammered, and I blurted out the first word that came to mind.

“Pregnancy.”

“……!”

“Wouldn’t having a baby in her womb be a problem?”

“Ah, I think they said this patient is hospitalized in the obstetrics and gynecology department, right?”

Ahn Gyeong-sik bit his tongue in realization, and Song Yu-ju nodded.

“Yes. The problem is pregnancy.”

Pregnancy.

It’s not a problem that ends with simply saying, ‘There’s a baby in her womb.’

While a mother nurtures a child in her womb, many parts of her body undergo drastic changes.

One of them is that the systemic vascular resistance throughout her body decreases.

Muscle monster lungs versus a body with decreased resistance.

At the fork in the road of [blood flow distribution], blood flow is more likely to go to the body than to the lungs.

Blood flow naturally goes to the side with lower resistance.

In other words, oxygen-depleted blood goes to the body more easily without passing through the lungs.

Therefore, as the pregnancy progresses, the mother becomes increasingly tired due to low oxygen levels.

“Ugh, this is a big problem… Oxygen isn’t being properly delivered throughout her body with a baby inside.”

“There’s more to the problem.”

“Yes?”

“Which organ do you think is having the hardest time right now?”

Song Yu-ju pointed the tip of her pen near Ahn Gyeong-sik’s chest.

It was the heart.

To nurture a baby in the womb, the mother’s heart must exert 40% more power than its original cardiac output.

The heart muscle strengthens, beats faster, and pumps more blood into the heart before ejecting it at once.

“Heok… 40 percent?”

Ahn Gyeong-sik’s mouth dropped open.

I was also surprised.

Indeed, how hard must the heart work to preserve two lives?

I chewed my lip, pondering Song Yu-ju’s words.

“The oxygen supplied to the heart is decreasing, but the cardiac output has to increase by 40%……”

“It’s like cutting their salary and not giving them food, but making them work more overtime, right?”

To our incredulous question, Song Yu-ju added.

“What are you so surprised about? It’s not over yet.”

Here, during childbirth, the heart has to power up again by up to 50%.

This is because more force is needed when the uterus contracts.

In short, it’s like an unprecedentedly harsh test for the heart.

“Even healthy people struggle with childbirth. But if this patient tries to give birth now, what will happen to her heart?”

Her heart is already struggling.

But, at the moment of squeezing it even more harshly……

The guy who had barely managed to hold on until now might say this.

What if the heart goes on strike?

Cardiac arrest.

A CPR [Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation] situation will unfold.

Cardiac arrest during childbirth means… neither the mother’s life nor the fetus’s life can be preserved.

“This is why women with Eisenmenger’s syndrome shouldn’t get pregnant.”

“……”

“Because the probability of losing both the patient’s life and the baby’s life is incredibly high.”

Click—

Song Yu-ju opened a canned drink, seemingly thirsty.

I always thought she was as dry as a winter tree, but she seems a bit emotional today.

I’m listening with a cool head, but my heart is stirring intensely.

“But there’s something I don’t understand… I feel bad saying this in front of the patient’s acquaintance, but.”

Doctor Ahn Gyeong-sik scratched his head, looked around, and carefully opened his mouth.

“Did she really have to get pregnant?”

“……”

Silence fell between us, and Ahn Gyeong-sik hurriedly said, as if making excuses.

“No, it might sound cold, but if it’s this dangerous of a pregnancy, shouldn’t she have avoided it in the first place… And even if she accidentally got pregnant, wouldn’t it have been better to terminate it, though it’s unfortunate……”

Song Yu-ju sighed softly.

“Actually, Ahn is right. Eisenmenger’s pregnant women are usually advised not to get pregnant.”

“Then……”

“It’s probably one of two things.”

Song Yu-ju added in a dry tone.

“Either they found out too late, or the patient herself insisted on it.”

Insisted.

Even if that were the case, it wouldn’t be surprising at all.

Because No-eul noona, as I know her, is the type to do that a hundred times over.

* * *

11 years ago.

I remember the days when I was tutored by No-eul noona.

The memories are now blurred like a watercolor painting, but some days remain clear.

“Shin Seon-han.”

Thwack!

No-eul noona flicked my forehead with her finger.

It was the first day of tutoring, and I, in my school uniform, clutched my forehead.

“Ouch.”

“Are you not going to focus?”

“You don’t have to hit me just because my grades aren’t good.”

“Who’s doing it because of your grades? I’m doing it because you’re spacing out with a gloomy look on your face from the first day in front of your tutor.”

There was a pile of test papers on the desk where we were sitting.

The results of the first mock exam.

The results were disastrous.

Unlike my dream of going to medical school, the grades were far short of it.

“Are you giving up already?”

“It’s not that.”

“For the record, I’m the type to do what I set out to do. I’ll teach you somehow for a year, so you have to follow me well.”

No-eul noona smiled and then patted me, comforting me.

“Still, your language score was much better than expected. Isn’t that a bit hopeful?”

The language section, now renamed the Korean language section.

Fortunately, I liked reading, and thanks to that, I was doing quite well in the language section.

“I like reading.”

“Did you read the book I gave you as a gift?”

“Yes, I finished it in one day.”

“How was it?”

The cover of the old bestseller showed a pilgrim walking along a road, with the moon shining brilliantly above his head.

“I didn’t like it very much. I couldn’t relate to the message at all.”

I leaned back and said cynically.

I was cynical, befitting my age as a first-year high school student.

I didn’t like the phrase in the novel, .

“Who helps you just because you desperately want something? It seems too far-fetched.”

“Seon-han, that’s not the important thing. The important thing is that you have something you desperately want in life.”

“……”

“You also want to desperately achieve something and find something, right? That’s why you said you’d study with me, right?”

I was speechless.

Looking at No-eul noona was like looking at the sun, so dazzling.

Enough to clear away the shadows that had been building up in my wandering heart.

“Okay, I’ll teach you how much you can learn from a failed exam. Let’s open the incorrect answer notes!”

“Yes.”

I answered without complaint, straightened my posture again, and focused on studying.

It was strange.

Should I call it a kind of positive contagion?

No-eul noona was physically weak, but her determination was great, and she was always steadfast and unwavering.

Looking at her, I sometimes had vaguely positive thoughts.

……If you wish for something, sometimes something close to a miracle might happen.

* * *

“……”

Shhh—

The sound of oxygen entering through the oxygen line connected from the wall can be heard.

No-eul noona’s hair is disheveled, and her skin is pale to the point of being bluish.

I quietly checked her condition as she lay asleep.

‘She’s still holding up well at this saturation level. And her heart rate isn’t too fast at this level…….’

Second day of hospitalization.

I often visited No-eul noona’s hospital room.

There wasn’t much for me, an intern, to do, but I wondered if I could be of any help, even a little.

‘Now I want to help.’

Looking back, I was too young at the time to properly express my gratitude.

So, I will definitely find it.

A way to increase No-eul noona’s chances of survival, even a little.

“Cool.”

Suddenly turning my head, No-eul noona was looking at me, having woken up from her sleep at some point.

“What is?”

“You wearing a doctor’s coat. It suits you well.”

No-eul noona smiled.

Feeling somehow embarrassed, I retorted a bit awkwardly.

“You don’t look good in a patient gown. How could you suddenly get so sick and come to me?”

I was surprised that my tone of voice sounded like a teenage boy.

That’s how old relationships are.

Meeting No-eul noona makes me feel like I’m going back to that time.

As if the past 10 years had disappeared.

“……You still seem to like books.”

I cleared my throat and changed the subject, pointing to the book on the bedside table.

“I met my husband at a publishing company.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I work as a translator……”

After that, No-eul noona slowly told me about various things that had happened.

But I couldn’t hear them well.

Actually, I want to ask.

Why did you get this pregnancy?

Knowing it was so dangerous, was it really necessary to risk your life?

‘As Doctor Ahn said, if the two of them wanted to, they could have terminated the pregnancy at any time…….’

Of course, abortion itself is a hot potato [a controversial issue].

The debate continues and the system is changing even at this moment.

In any case, even looking at the current Mother and Child Health Act, it clearly specifies several permissible conditions for artificial termination of pregnancy.

<……If the mother’s health is severely impaired or there is a risk of impairment>

In other words, No-eul noona clearly has the right to terminate the pregnancy.

“Seon-han, shall I guess what you’re thinking?”

“Yes?”

“You’re wondering why I decided on such a dangerous pregnancy, aren’t you?”

She’s very perceptive.

She seems to have vaguely noticed just by looking at my expression.

No-eul noona adjusted her pillow, gasped for breath, and said slowly.

“When I found out about the problem with my heart at the old hospital…… I was already 24 weeks along.”

“24 weeks? You must have been very short of breath by then.”

“Yeah. I’m usually a bit weak anyway. I thought that’s how it was when you’re pregnant……. I went to a small obstetrics and gynecology clinic in the neighborhood, and they didn’t say anything about it before either.”

If it was early on, termination might have been valid.

But after 24 weeks.

At this point, terminating the baby itself carries risks.

Whether to terminate or continue, both situations cannot guarantee the lives of the mother and baby.

That’s why No-eul noona decided to continue the pregnancy at another university hospital before coming to Yeon-guk University Hospital.

“Even if you had found out sooner, you wouldn’t have terminated it anyway, because you’re the type to do what you set out to do.”

No-eul noona smiled silently at my gentle reproach.

……I couldn’t understand her inside.

During the 10 years I hadn’t seen her, what kind of things had this person experienced, and how much did she want a child?

I couldn’t just guess and judge that as I pleased.

“Anyway, don’t talk too much and rest.”

I calmed No-eul noona down.

And I glanced at the monitor.

On the monitor, a graph showing the oxygen level is drawing a waveform according to No-eul noona’s heart rate.

But the numbers were not familiar.

‘Wait…… something’s a bit strange?’