A Surgeon Who Uses Martial Arts [EN]: Chapter 531

104. Parents’ Hearts (2)

Below the apartment’s large glass window, the expansive and deep blue scenery of the Han River unfolded.

The surface of the Han River shimmered like golden scales in the midday sun.

Beyond the Han River, high-rise buildings stretched out, and the cars running on the main roads looked like toys.

A dreamlike view that anyone in Korea would dream of.

However, Seo Bo-young’s expression as she looked at it was dark.

For the past few months, Seo Bo-young hadn’t smiled even once.

She stroked her protruding belly with one hand.

The fact that the fetus was sick.

That it would be born with a deformity.

That tormented Seo Bo-young. She worried that the child, born weak, might resent her later.

Such worries already overwhelmed her.

She had nightmares as often as she ate, and after waking up, her whole body was damp with cold sweat.

“Honey, let’s eat.”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“You need to eat well and stay strong, especially at times like this. Don’t you think?”

Her husband approached her. He put his arm around Seo Bo-young’s shoulder.

“Other people crave this or that when they’re pregnant and nag their husbands. You should do that too.”

“I wish I could.”

Seo Bo-young smiled sadly.

After suffering from infertility, she finally conceived through IVF [In Vitro Fertilization] after much difficulty.

At that time, she felt like she had the whole world.

But the situation turned upside down again.

How long will life continue to be so fickle?

“Have you heard from Professor Seo yet?”

“No. I guess he needs time too.”

“He probably needs time to give up. If he had the will to do it, he would have done it already.”

“Professor Seo might be different. I’ve looked around, and he’s skilled, resourceful, and persistent.”

Her husband praised Joon-hoo for a long time.

As if he had received a bribe.

It was her husband who initially suggested going down to Busan.

“Would he have performed the surgery if we weren’t celebrities?”

“Well… I don’t know.”

“I think he would have performed the surgery if I weren’t a celebrity.”

Seo Bo-young bit her lip tightly.

If she were hospitalized, the media would somehow catch wind of it and gossip.

And wouldn’t that be a burden for the person performing the surgery?

If it succeeds, it’s a relief.

But if it fails, they would receive national ridicule.

“Let’s wait just five more days.”

“What happens after five days? We’ve been rejected by all the top hospitals in Korea.”

“I’m looking into overseas options. America or Japan. If it doesn’t work in Korea, we’ll have to go abroad.”

“I’m sorry. It’s all because of me….”

Seo Bo-young’s eyes turned red.

Her slender shoulders began to tremble.

“Why is it because of you? It’s not your fault. You’re just unlucky.”

“But I think it’s my fault. Everyone is suffering because of me.”

“If you say that again, you’ll be….”

Her husband stopped talking.

He took out his phone and started a call.

“Yes.”

-…….

“Yes. I understand. I’ll see you as soon as possible.”

“Was that about the drama filming you mentioned before?”

“How could I start filming when I know you’re having such a hard time? It’s something else.”

“What is it?”

Seo Bo-young tilted her head.

It was the first time she had seen her husband being so obsequious on a call.

“Our savior is calling us.”

Her husband smiled brightly.

* * *

Two days later, Shinwon University Hospital VIP room in Busan.

Joon-hoo visited room 1103.

After knocking, he heard a voice telling him to come in.

“Hello.”

“Welcome, Professor.”

Kim Nam-joon and Seo Bo-young greeted Joon-hoo with bright smiles. Joon-hoo bowed and stood next to the bed.

“How are you feeling?”

Joon-hoo’s gaze went to Seo Bo-young.

“I’m fine. It’s the baby that’s the problem.”

“My wife is having a hard time emotionally.”

“I would feel the same if I were in your shoes. I’ll briefly explain what I couldn’t say over the phone.”

Joon-hoo calmly and as easily as possible explained the procedure.

Inserting a needle into the mother’s abdomen.

Inserting that needle into the fetus’s femoral artery, then guiding the needle up to the fetus’s brain to treat the abnormal blood vessels.

“It’s a catheter procedure.”

“How did you know that?”

Joon-hoo was startled by Kim Nam-joon’s accurate assessment.

“I used to play the main character in a medical drama. I studied it a bit back then.”

“I see.”

“I’m asking because I don’t know anything.”

Seo Bo-young carefully broached the subject.

“Just listening to what you said, the procedure doesn’t sound that difficult. Why did all the other hospitals refuse?”

“That’s very simple. You’ll understand quickly with just an example.”

Joon-hoo chuckled.

“To become a good actor, you need to perfectly absorb the characteristics of the role you’re playing and memorize the script well.”

“…….”

“Just listening to that, acting seems easy, right?”

The couple laughed simultaneously at Joon-hoo’s perfect analogy.

Everything sounds easy in words, doesn’t it?

Like saying that to become a good novelist, you need to read a lot of books, write a lot, and think a lot.

“Can I examine your belly for a moment?”

“Yes, go ahead.”

After receiving Seo Bo-young’s permission, Joon-hoo raised Seo Bo-young’s hospital gown top up to just above her navel.

Thump!

He placed the stethoscope on her navel and put his right palm next to it.

Woooong. Woooong.

The curtain rose on the Internal Energy Examination Technique, which he had practiced with blood and sweat for the past week.

The internal energy flowing from his palm passed through the mother’s abdomen in the form of sound waves.

The sea of amniotic fluid unfolded immediately.

The sound wave-shaped internal energy rippled and couldn’t find its way.

It only made the amniotic fluid surge.

‘Don’t panic, take it slow.’

Joon-hoo calmed his mind and proceeded to the next step.

Maintaining the sound wave shape.

He refined it into a single stream to probe the fetus.

Perhaps sensing the change in the flow of amniotic fluid, the fetus wiggled.

Joon-hoo sent the stream of internal energy to the fetus’s head. At the same time, he slightly increased the intensity of the internal energy he was outputting.

The internal energy also passed through the fetus’s head.

After passing through the scalp, skull, and meninges [membranes covering the brain and spinal cord] in order, he felt the wrinkled brain.

The fetus’s brain was softer and smaller than an adult’s.

Joon-hoo delicately stroked each of the fetus’s cerebral blood vessels with the touch of internal energy.

Some were as thin as threads.

To exaggerate a bit, some were as thick and sturdy as ropes.

And finally…….

He felt the malformed vein formed near the middle cerebral artery. Some blood vessels were swollen, and there were also bypasses.

The condition was much more serious than he had thought.

There was no room to enjoy the satisfaction of the Internal Energy Examination Technique performed on the fetus.

Although the road ahead was steep, Joon-hoo was not disappointed.

The Joon-hoo of the past could not have dared to imagine that he would reach this point.

Then wouldn’t the Joon-hoo of the future do something that today’s Joon-hoo couldn’t even imagine?

“It’s done.”

Joon-hoo removed the stethoscope and his palm from the mother’s abdomen.

At the same time, he lightly touched his temples with his index and middle fingers.

Pop! Pop!

He used the Brain Acupoint Technique to activate the hippocampus [brain region associated with memory].

The map of the fetal cerebral blood vessels he had just explored was clearly stored in Joon-hoo’s head.

So that he could take it out at any time.

“Doctor, how will the surgery proceed now?”

“First, it would be good to fast for about two days while receiving IV fluids.”

“Why is that?”

“In the case of this surgery, we can’t set a surgery date.”

Joon-hoo continued to explain.

“We have to go into surgery when the baby is in an upright position.”

“Ah…….”

“Ah…….”

The couple sighed simultaneously.

“From now on, the obstetrics and gynecology resident will come to the hospital room from time to time to do abdominal ultrasounds. We’ll go into emergency surgery when a suitable position for surgery is created.”

“Yes. I’ll trust you, Doctor.”

“Please take care of me.”

“The pleasure is all mine.”

Joon-hoo left a few requests with the couple and left the hospital room.

Now it was time to move on to the second stage of the procedure.

* * *

That evening, in his office.

Joon-hoo was lying comfortably with his back against the leather sofa.

He seemed to be asleep at first glance, but he wasn’t.

Joon-hoo was in intense training.

He was stimulating the visual cells concentrated in the back of his head with acupressure and doing image training.

“It’s making me angry. Really.”

Joon-hoo, who opened his eyes with a start, frowned. He ruffled his hair wildly with both hands.

He had tried the catheter procedure a total of two times using the cerebral blood vessel map stored in the hippocampus.

The results were failures both times.

Not just failures, but complete failures.

Before he could even approach the malformed blood vessels, all the blood vessels of the fetus in his imagination ruptured and were destroyed.

If it had been real, the child would have died.

-If it could be covered with surgery, the obstetrics and gynecology department would have consulted the neurosurgery department a long time ago. Don’t you think?-

In the midst of his suffering.

He remembered what Shin Hyun-jung had said, mocking Joon-hoo.

She was right.

No matter how thin the catheter was, it was impossible to pass through the fetus’s thin and fragile cerebral blood vessels without damaging them.

There was a reason why other neurosurgeons didn’t take on Seo Bo-young.

Of course, Joon-hoo knew that reason a long time ago.

“Hoo-yoo.”

Joon-hoo sighed as if the ground was sinking. He stared blankly at the ceiling.

The white ceiling was like a white prison.

It was the first time he had met such a strong opponent since returning to Korea after completing the Mayu Boost-Up Program [fictional training program].

Why do I always suffer unnecessarily?

As his thoughts reached that point, he felt that his situation was pathetic.

「You have a power that others don’t have. So you have to do things that others can’t do.

That’s your real destiny.」

He heard such a resonance from within.

He nodded because he couldn’t deny it.

Joon-hoo took out the pen he had put in his gown pocket. He put the pen between his index finger and thumb and twirled it around.

How can I protect the fetus’s blood vessels?

The first thing that came to mind was the Soft Sword Technique [a martial arts technique].

A soft sword was literally a thin sword. The strength was weak, but the sword had the characteristic of shaking unpredictably from side to side.

If the Soft Sword Technique is applied to the catheter procedure…….

He thought that he might be able to use the catheter’s erratic trajectory in reverse.

It’s similar to riding a bicycle.

A bicycle seems to move straight forward, but it subtly shakes from side to side to maintain its balance.

Joon-hoo put the pen he was twirling back into his gown.

He held a payment document in his hand and fluttered it from side to side.

The document moved in an S shape.

The movement of the soft sword was exactly like this style.

It seemed like it would work.

It also seemed like it wouldn’t.

Joon-hoo’s expression was ambiguous.

Joon-hoo put the document down on the table and pondered for a long time. He tried to find a solution that was closer to the essence.

How much time had passed?

A fairly plausible method flashed through his mind.

‘Let’s try again.’

Just as he was about to get into position and start image training again.

The cell phone he had put in his pocket vibrated violently.

Could it be that the fetus’s position was fixed on the first day of hospitalization?

His preparation was still insufficient…….

Joon-hoo hurriedly took out his cell phone and checked the number first. His face crumpled in an instant.