A Surgeon Who Uses Martial Arts [EN]: Chapter 156

Chapter 29: Mission (1)

Step. Step.

Having finished his rounds in the intensive care unit, Jun-hoo was returning to the ward.

He glanced out the window, which was tinged with orange.

The sunset was on its way home.

‘The sun has a commute, but I don’t,’ he mused.

A burst of laughter escaped him as the thought crossed his mind. ‘The astrocytoma surgery must have been tough on me.’

The surgery alone had taken a good half of the day, seven hours.

Still, Jun-hoo was in a better position.

He could consistently maintain his stamina and concentration with the nutrient supplement and Qi [vital energy] circulation combination.

The third-floor hallway of the main building was rather quiet.

The current time was 5:50 PM.

It was the time when outpatient appointments were ending, and outpatients and their guardians were leaving the hospital.

The people he encountered in the hallway were mostly doctors or nurses.

Jun-hoo crossed the hallway and stood in front of the elevator.

He looked around idly.

An elderly man with a hunched back and a face full of wrinkles caught his eye.

The old man was also looking around, but his purpose seemed different from Jun-hoo’s.

Jun-hoo quickly noticed the old man’s predicament.

So, he approached the old man and spoke without hesitation.

“Sir, where are you trying to go?”

“I was told to come to the Thyroid Center by 6 o’clock. Is this the right place?”

“Oh, you’ve come to the wrong place. The Thyroid Center is in the annex. This is the main building.”

“That’s strange? I thought I came correctly?”

The old man frowned as if he was in trouble.

The old man was lost in the hospital.

Anyone who has visited a university hospital knows that the inside is more complex than most shopping malls.

Various outpatient clinics.

Various examination rooms.

Moreover, even the convenience facilities were scattered.

In addition, the buildings were divided into the main building, annex, cancer center, and children’s hospital.

Young people can find their way by looking at the information desk and signboards, but it was difficult for the elderly.

“Sir, you only have 10 minutes until 6 o’clock.”

“What can I do? I’ll have to give up today’s appointment. As I get older… my mind isn’t as sharp as it used to be.”

The old man gave a bitter smile.

“It’s not your fault, sir. The hospital is just too complicated, like a maze.”

“Thank you for your kind words.”

“It would be a waste to come all this way for nothing, so let me give you a piggyback ride.”

Jun-hoo turned his back to the old man and bent down slightly.

“Doctor, surely….”

“I’ll take you there quickly and safely.”

“I can’t impose on you like this. You must be busy, doctor.”

“I have time to take you, sir. Hurry and get on my back, we don’t have much time.”

Unable to resist Jun-hoo’s urging, the old man eventually got on Jun-hoo’s back.

“Do you have any back or neck problems?”

“No, not really….”

“Good. Then hold on tight to my neck. I’ll run like lightning.”

Whoosh!

Carrying the old man on his back, Jun-hoo dashed to the center of the hallway like a bolt of lightning.

There was no time to wait for the elevator, so he quickly went down to the first floor via the central staircase.

The first floor of the main building was more crowded than the third floor.

There were still outpatients and inpatients left in the hospital.

It was impossible to run at full speed.

‘Then there’s another way,’ Jun-hoo thought.

Jun-hoo ran again towards the passage connected to the annex.

Stepping on the Butterfly Steps.

The Butterfly Steps were a footwork specialized in curves and changes of direction rather than straight lines.

It was a footwork that had shone brightly when facing the Sapiens in a one-to-many battle.

“Ugh… Doctor… too fast. I’m going to bump into someone!”

The old man screamed from behind.

As the old man feared.

A sturdy young man was standing right in front of Jun-hoo.

A collision was inevitable if they continued like this.

But Jun-hoo, while running, spun his body counterclockwise. He narrowly avoided colliding with the young man.

This was a piece of cake for Jun-hoo.

Footwork was what he was most confident in after swordsmanship.

Jun-hoo lightly avoided the patients, guardians, and staff in his path with butterfly-like movements.

Even so, the speed of his footwork did not decrease.

Jun-hoo had complete confidence in not colliding with the people blocking his path.

“It may be scary, but please bear with it. We won’t make it to the appointment time if I don’t run like this.”

“I… is it still too fast?”

The old man said in a terrified voice.

The old man’s hair was already fluttering in the wind generated by Jun-hoo’s running.

“Just think of it as riding in a human taxi.”

Jun-hoo avoided the people and entered the passage connected to the annex.

He passed through the passage in an instant and arrived at the annex.

The central staircase he found again.

Leap!

Jun-hoo jumped over a half-story staircase in a single leap.

In other words, he jumped over 15 stairs at once.

Immediately after jumping over the stairs in one go, Jun-hoo bent his waist and knees.

He put the internal energy pulled from his dantian [energy center in the body] into the soles of his feet.

Thousand Weights Drop.

A martial art that absorbs the shock to the body while maintaining the body’s center of gravity.

Jun-hoo didn’t care if he ran around the stairs like a deer.

But he carefully used his martial arts because the old man on his back could be shocked.

“We’ve arrived.”

After conquering the stairs in an instant, Jun-hoo lowered the old man in front of the reception desk of the Thyroid Center on the 3rd floor of the annex.

Was he surprised by Jun-hoo’s sprint?

The old man was staggering.

Jun-hoo grabbed his shoulder to prevent the old man from falling.

“Are you okay?”

“I… I was very surprised, but I’m okay. But what time is it now….”

“It’s 5:55. It’s cutting it close, but you’re not late.”

“Thank you, Doctor. I survived thanks to you. Otherwise, I would have had to come next time.”

The old man bowed his head and expressed his gratitude.

“You’re welcome. I just did what I had to do. Come this way.”

Jun-hoo helped the old man with his registration.

He felt relieved only after seeing the old man sitting in the waiting room.

“Doctor, you’re so kind. Did you carry the patient all the way here?”

The outpatient nurse at the station asked Jun-hoo.

“Yes. I helped him because he was lost.”

“Well, university hospitals are inherently complex. Even young people get lost… Thank you for your hard work, Doctor Jun-hoo.”

“Do you know me?”

“Wouldn’t it be strange if I didn’t know you?”

The nurse smiled and pointed to the outpatient electronic display board.

A hospital promotional video was playing on the display board, and Jun-hoo was in the promotional video.

It was a video taken by Jun-hoo when he was an intern, selected for his good looks(?).

Jun-hoo felt embarrassed for no reason.

“Thank you for your hard work, too.”

Jun-hoo hurried back to the ward with a relieved heart.

Shortly after.

A survey with Jun-hoo’s name written on it was submitted to the kind employee recommendation box.

[A kind and young doctor saw that I was lost and took me directly to the clinic. He even carried me on his back. Thank you again to the doctor who gave me a thrilling and unforgettable experience.]

* * *

That night, in the on-call room.

Sitting at his desk, Jun-hoo had his eyes closed and his hands on a skull model.

Kyung-soo, who was watching him, said a word.

“You’ve developed a strange hobby these days?”

“What hobby?”

“What you’re doing now. Why are you putting your hands on a skull model? I’ve never seen such a perverted hobby in my life.”

Kyung-soo shook his head as if he couldn’t understand Jun-hoo.

“Did you work too much and something went wrong with your head? I’m starting to get a little scared?”

“Do I… look like Jun-hoo to you?”

Jun-hoo imitated a ghost from a horror movie, and Kyung-soo was horrified.

He fidgeted and made a fuss.

“Ugh. Annoying. I’m leaving. You eat well and have fun by yourself.”

Jun-hoo smiled as he watched Kyung-soo leave the on-call room.

To other people, Jun-hoo’s actions would seem eccentric.

How could they see the sight of him closing his eyes and quietly putting his hands on a skull model in a good way?

But Jun-hoo’s unusual behavior had a clear goal and reason.

Jun-hoo had been steadily training for two months.

Internal energy tumor removal surgery.

A surgery to sharpen the internal energy sent into the patient’s head like a scalpel to remove the tumor.

Internal energy tumor resection was essential to remove tumors in areas that could not be removed by surgery (such as the brainstem).

And to remove tumors that cannot be removed with a gamma knife.

Jun-hoo took his hand off the model.

He clicked the mouse and displayed a patient’s chart on the monitor.

Noh Hyun-min.

Age 32.

After complaining of language impairment, headaches, and seizures, he was diagnosed with malignant glioma through an MRI examination after receiving treatment from the Department of Neurology.

Currently, a 4cm x 4cm glioma was located in the patient’s brainstem.

Tomorrow, the Department of Neurosurgery was scheduled to resect the tumor through gamma knife surgery.

‘This patient’s only hope is me. I have to do something,’ Jun-hoo thought.

Jun-hoo’s eyes were solemn as he looked at the chart.

A tumor in the brainstem could not be removed by surgery.

This was because there were various central nerves, including those controlling breathing, and the probability of the patient dying during tumor removal was high.

Gamma knife surgery also had limitations.

Unfortunately, gamma knife surgery was not very effective in tumors larger than 3cm.

So, Jun-hoo’s plan was this.

He would finely chop the tumor into pieces smaller than 3cm through internal energy tumor resection.

The finely chopped tumor was removed with a radiation gamma knife.

The plan was ambitious, but it was uncertain whether the treatment would go as planned.

If he cut off the brainstem, not the tumor, with a mind sword sharpened with internal energy, the patient would die at Jun-hoo’s hands.

If that happened, Jun-hoo would suffer a great psychological blow due to the guilt of killing the patient.

He was terrified at the thought of failure, but Jun-hoo decided to push ahead with the plan.

If he was afraid of failure, he would not be able to achieve anything.

Sigh.

Whew.

Jun-hoo took a deep breath and put his hand on the skull model again.

He focused his mind, which had been disturbed by Kyung-soo, on one point.

10 minutes passed like that.

Jun-hoo carefully separated the skull model. He also separated the 6 pieces of brain model inside.

The piece of chocolate attached to the brainstem with adhesive was neatly cut out.

There were no wounds on the brainstem.

If the practice was like the real thing, it was not an impossible challenge.

* * *

The morning of the fateful day dawned.

Jun-hoo was busy with morning conferences, rounds, and chart input tasks.

But all the while, Jun-hoo’s mind was only on internal energy tumor resection.

Because only by completing internal energy tumor resection could he completely graduate from brain tumor surgery.

“Take good care of the house. I’m going to the Gamma Knife Center.”

When it was 11 a.m., Jun-hoo left the on-call room and headed to the Gamma Knife Center on the 2nd floor of the main building.

The gamma knife was a type of radiation therapy.

Unlike general radiation therapy, it was a treatment that killed tumors by shooting strong radiation at once.

When he arrived at the center, the patient was already waiting.

He was sitting in the waiting room with his guardian.

The patient, who was in his early 30s, looked like a withered plant.

There was no vitality in his face, eyes, or actions.

A stage 3 brain tumor at the age of 32.

How could fate be so strange?

The longer he worked at the hospital, the more often and clearly Jun-hoo witnessed the absurdity of the world.

“Doctor, will today’s surgery go well?”

The guardian found Jun-hoo and asked with a worried expression.

The guardian’s voice was affectionate.

“The treatment will proceed as planned. I’ll do my best, so don’t worry too much.”

“To think that the tumor is in an area where surgery is impossible… I resent the heavens.”

“I’m sorry, too. Please wait, guardian, and patient, this way.”

Jun-hoo supported the patient and entered the Gamma Knife Center operating room.

It was called an operating room, but the gamma knife operating room was different from a general operating room.

It had an atmosphere similar to an MRI examination room.

There were desks and tables near the entrance, and a cylindrical gamma knife radiation therapy machine was standing in the center of the operating room.

Surgical tools such as surgical tables, scalpels, gauze, bovies [electrocautery devices], and retractors could not be found even if you looked closely.

On the other hand, the treatment planning room across the operating room could be seen clearly through the glass.

It was still time to prepare for surgery.

There was no one in the treatment planning room.

Neither the stereotactic neurosurgery professor nor the other residents were visible.

Jun-hoo sat the patient in a chair and had a light conversation.

“How are you feeling?”

“The… the worst. It feels like there’s an earthquake in my head. It feels like it’s shaking… and I’m dizzy.”

“Let’s start by relieving the tension lightly?”

Jun-hoo went behind the patient and released the patient’s head with acupressure.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

He even used pain-relieving acupressure.

“Huh? Doctor. My head feels a little better. It’s much better than before. I feel a little calmer, too.”

“It seems like the surgery will go well.”

“But… the professor said gamma knife surgery is not perfect.”

The patient said in a discouraged voice.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll make the imperfect surgery perfect. I’ll make you live healthier and longer,’ Jun-hoo thought.

Jun-hoo answered inwardly.

After stabilizing the patient, Jun-hoo lightly tapped the back of the patient’s neck with the side of his hand.

The patient’s arms and legs drooped.

The patient lost consciousness in the blink of an eye.

Thud!

Jun-hoo put his hand on the patient’s head and began to infuse internal energy.

The first internal energy tumor resection in practice.

Now, the patient’s progress was entirely in Jun-hoo’s hands.