Dr. Shin Seonhan: The Doctor Who Sees The Future [EN]: Chapter 197

Sometimes, I think.

Some memories never heal.

When I recall the happy times with my mom, my heart aches as if touching a raw wound.

It’s because I know those times can never return.

“Daughter, son, wake up!”

I can vividly recall my mom’s voice waking me up in the morning, even the cozy smell of the blanket.

“Just five more minutes, Mom…”

“Five minutes turns into ten, then twenty. Hurry!”

Whack!

Mom would yank the blanket away.

Waging war every morning was the start of our family’s day.

“Ugh, really. Give me the blanket!”

“That’s why you should get up when I tell you the first time.”

In my memory, Mom was always a busy person.

If I had to pick the most diligent person in the world, my mom would definitely be on the list.

My sisters and I, barely awake, would crawl out to the living room, unable to resist Mom’s nagging.

“Good morning…”

My eldest sister, always short on sleep because she was a senior in high school.

“Ugh, I’m not eating breakfast.”

My second sister, prickly as she faced adolescence head-on.

“Mom, please knock from now on… please.”

Even me, the youngest, just entering middle school.

When the three of us siblings sat at the table with disheveled hair, looking like baby birds, Mom’s meal was soon served.

In my naive childhood.

I just took it for granted back then.

“Eat quickly and get ready for school.”

“Yes~”

“Thank you for the meal!”

“Hey, Shin-sun! If you use the bathroom first, you’re dead!”

“I told you all to eat breakfast before washing up!”

“I’m done eating!”

Every morning was chaotic in our small house.

If we barely ate our food, Mom would insist on making us sit back down and take a few more spoonfuls.

Day after day.

Days as common as grains of sand on a beach.

* * *

“Mom, is there anything you want?”

One winter day, before heading to school, I asked while tying my shoelaces.

“Anything I want?”

“It’s Mom’s birthday tomorrow.”

“Oh? Really?”

Mom, still wearing her apron, looked at the calendar with wide eyes as she saw us off.

“That’s right. No wonder your dad was subtly asking me something similar when he went out.”

“My sisters said they’d make seaweed soup, so I was going to do something else…”

“Seaweed soup?”

“Oops.”

Looking back, I shouldn’t have said that.

I belatedly covered my mouth, and my sisters glared at me.

“Dong-saeng [younger sibling], keep your mouth shut!”

“Ugh, seriously, Shin-sun! It was a secret, why did you have to say that?”

Thwack!

My second sister smacked the back of my head with a shoehorn.

Ouch!

Seeing our affectionate (?) 모습 [moseup – appearance/scene], Mom smiled brightly.

“My daughters and son know how to make seaweed soup?”

“Sun-hye and I were going to make it at night. I looked it up online, and it seemed easy.”

“No way. You guys should do your homework during that time.”

Mom was always like that.

She used her overflowing energy to take care of others and was clumsy when it came to taking care of herself.

“Mom, you skipped seaweed soup last year too. Dad burned it all the way the year before last…”

“Make it for me starting next year. After Sun-hye enters college. Mom’s fine.”

It was the same thing she always said.

Mom’s fine.

But we stubbornly insisted, and Mom reluctantly said.

“Ugh, alright. Mom will make the seaweed soup.”

“Why are you making it? We said we’d make it for you?”

“Who cares who makes it? As long as it tastes good.”

In any case, we never won an argument with Mom.

Besides, there’s no time.

We hurried to school as if we had agreed to it beforehand.

“We’re off!”

“The road is slippery, be careful!”

Mom always ended the last sentence of the conversation with worry.

I waved back at Mom as if to say not to worry.

The bus stop I was waiting at.

Icicles that had ambiguously melted shone in the winter sunlight.

I blankly stared at the sky, exhaling white breath, and soon the conversation with Mom was forgotten in my head.

Middle school 1st grade [7th grade in the US system].

It was when I still didn’t know anything about the world.

* * *

“What? Mom fell down the stairs?”

That evening.

I, who was a middle school student, came home after playing games at a PC cafe with friends until the sun had set.

And then, I heard the situation from my sister.

She fell down the stairs while coming back from grocery shopping and broke her leg, and she was hospitalized at a nearby orthopedic clinic.

“The back gate stairs?”

“Yeah, she fell while going to buy seaweed. I’m so upset.”

“Knowing the road is icy, she should be careful herself before worrying about us!”

My second sister burst out in annoyance.

I was also angry for no reason.

Is it because of me?

Is it because I brought up the seaweed soup, causing Mom to go grocery shopping?

I felt guilty, as if it was all my fault.

“Is she hurt anywhere else? If she breaks her leg, does she have to walk with crutches? For how long? Does she have to be hospitalized?”

We poured questions at our eldest sister.

“She’ll have surgery tomorrow afternoon. Sun-han, I’ll make you food, so don’t even think about skipping school with that excuse! Go to the hospital after school and hagwon [private academy], got it?”

My older sister, who was a high school student, scolded me.

I called Mom, who was in the hospital, with my cell phone, which had just been activated at the time.

“Mom, are you okay?”

Mom’s voice sounded bright over the phone.

I was relieved, even if only a little.

Looking back now, she deliberately spoke brightly to reassure me.

“Does it hurt a lot?”

Mom smiled softly over the receiver.

Tibia/fibula fracture.

There was no way it wouldn’t hurt, but I believed those words at the time.

“…Do you have to have surgery tomorrow?”

As always with Mom’s conversations, a repetitive or funnel-shaped conversation continued.

“Yeah, I heard it from Sun-do noona [older sister]. I’ll take care of it! I’ll go after school tomorrow, Mom.”

Mom was hospitalized, but she was only worried about me.

Then, my dad’s voice was heard over the phone.

Then he took the phone and spoke.

“Okay. Dad, take good care of her, I’ll go tomorrow.”

Then Mom took the phone again.

“Oh my, Mom… stop nagging. I’ll turn it on myself if it’s cold. I’ll see you tomorrow, Mom!”

Thud—

I hung up the phone.

It seemed like the nagging would continue all night if I didn’t.

I regretted it a little after hanging up.

Instead of grumbling about being nagged, I should have expressed my affection.

‘…Well, I’ll do it tomorrow.’

The feeling that something had to be said, unlike usual, was just a feeling.

* * *

And the next day.

Mom’s birthday.

At 11 a.m., Mom went into the operating room.

Hyunmin Hospital was a hospital famous in the neighborhood for performing many orthopedic surgeries.

Of course, now that I think about it, it was far from a university hospital in size.

But at the time, it was a hospital that everyone went to when they had a fracture.

The surgery, which started with lower body spinal anesthesia, lasted nearly 3 hours.

[Sun-han] Dad, did Mom’s surgery go well?

I texted Dad as the class was coming to an end.

For some reason, I couldn’t focus on studying that day.

[Dad] Yeah, the surgery went well and we just went up to the ward.

Up to this point, Mom was fine.

After being transferred to the ward, her oxygen levels showed a slight tendency to drop, so she had to wear an oxygen mask, but it was not deviating from the normal post-operative course.

[Dad] Don’t worry, study hard and come

[Sun-han] Should I buy flowers?

[Dad] What flowers?

[Sun-han] Mom likes flowers

[Dad] Okay, do that

Dad was full of affection for Mom, but he was always clumsy in expressing it.

‘I have to buy flowers as soon as hagwon is over.’

I was relieved and focused on studying.

That’s how I was taking hagwon class at 7:30 p.m.

Suddenly, the incident began.

“Honey, has the pain subsided a little now? They say this medicine makes you sleepy. The doctor told you to breathe deeply.”

“……”

“Honey?”

“……”

“Honey!!”

Dad shook her, but Mom didn’t respond.

Mom suddenly became unconscious and unresponsive.

“He… help! Please take a look here!”

Dad urgently called a nurse, and the nurse began to examine Mom.

When she gave a strong pain stimulus, all she did was open and close her eyes.

The nurse was flustered and measured her blood pressure and checked her heart rate.

“Blood pressure, pulse, and respiratory rate are normal, but the oxygen saturation is… !”

Even though she was already administering oxygen through a mask, the oxygen level was 90.

The nurse urgently increased the oxygen capacity of the oxygen mask and called the doctor.

“Patient in room 204 is unconscious, call the on-call doctor!”

While the guardian, ward staff, and nurses were pacing back and forth, the doctor rushed in.

He quickly assessed the patient and performed several tests.

A chest X-ray and brain CT scan were performed urgently.

No major abnormalities were observed on the head CT, and a small amount of water was observed on both sides of the chest image.

The young on-call orthopedic surgeon was also embarrassed, and he said to Dad, unable to find the cause.

“You have to go to a bigger hospital!”

Hyunmin Hospital was not a hospital that could handle such critically ill patients.

Preparations were made to go to a university hospital, but a few more minutes passed while preparing the ambulance and documents.

In the meantime, Mom’s breathing became shallower, and her eyes even turned to the left.

There was no response to strong stimuli, and her consciousness was observed to be further reduced.

The oxygen level was also about 87%, even though she was giving the maximum amount of oxygen through a mask.

“Guardian, get in the front!”

“I’ve already told the emergency room there, so if you show them this document!!”

Everyone is moving urgently.

Beee—

The ambulance Mom was in wailed with a siren and rushed to a nearby university hospital.

By the time she arrived at the university hospital, her blood pressure and oxygen levels were even lower.

In the emergency room of the university hospital, endotracheal intubation and CPR were performed for a while.

* * *

It was late when I arrived at the hospital.

Why?

The feeling wasn’t good.

It was my first time visiting a hospital at night, and I was afraid to go inside the main gate.

The feeling of being swallowed into an endless, silent darkness.

“……”

Hugging a pot of hyacinths that Mom liked in one hand, I carefully took a step.

“Sun-han.”

When I arrived at the hallway in front of the intensive care unit, I was very surprised.

It was the first time I had seen Dad’s face like that.

It was as if he had aged ten years in a day.

Next to him, my sisters were sitting with their faces covered.

“…How’s Mom?”

I asked casually.

As if firmly believing that everything would return to normal like yesterday morning.

But seeing my family’s expressions, I sensed that something irreversible had happened.

Dad too.

The eldest sister too.

The second sister too.

Everyone was swallowing their tears, unable to explain the situation to me.

“Sun-han…”

“Why is even big sister like this. Don’t joke around.”

I pushed away my sister who was trying to grab my hand.

My legs gave way.

It felt like the ground was sinking and slowly sinking into an endlessly deep place.

I looked around and approached the doctor.

“Doctor, what happened?”

“……”

The doctor, who had gray hair, couldn’t speak.

“My mom’s okay, right?”

Even I couldn’t hear my own voice well.

“I even talked to Mom yesterday.”

My vision became blurry.

I grabbed the hem of the doctor’s gown, who was ignoring me.

“Doctor. It’s not true. Just because someone broke their leg, they can’t suddenly die, it can’t be like that.”

I couldn’t breathe well.

Something hot kept rising from my throat.

The moment my second sister collapsed, wailing, I finally realized everything.

My older sister hugged me, and I squeezed out a breath and ran at the doctor, crying.

“Doctor, this isn’t true. What happened to our mom, doctor… !”

Mom was lying in the intensive care unit with a ventilator, and even if I went to visit, I couldn’t talk to her.

After that, various tests, including a head MRI, were performed, but Mom’s consciousness never returned.

…Everyday happiness ended so futilely.

The opportunity for us to make seaweed soup for Mom was also lost forever.

Middle school 1st grade.

It was what happened when I didn’t know anything about the world.