Dr. Shin Seonhan: The Doctor Who Sees The Future [EN]: Chapter 43

#43 The ICU Marine (3)

The sheets were stained with blood.

What on earth happened last night?

Just then, someone tapped me on the back.

I was startled.

“Yoonsung, what happened?”

My intern colleague, Yoonsung, had tissues stuffed in his nose.

Did he have a nosebleed?

Not only that, but his eyes were sunken, and he looked like he had been through something.

Why does he look like that?

I asked in surprise.

“What’s wrong?”

“Man, you wouldn’t believe it. A patient went crazy trying to pull out his lines in the middle of the night…”

Yoonsung whined, on the verge of tears.

From what I gathered, the patient’s delirium had worsened during the night.

He suddenly started shouting and thrashing around, trying to pull out the tubes connected to his body.

Actually, trying to pull out lines is a common occurrence during delirium.

“Suddenly, he was saying he needed to get a gun and ripped out his chest tube.”

“He pulled out his chest tube?”

“Yeah. Blood was dripping from the tube, and blood was flowing from his chest. It was the worst moment of my intern life so far.”

“Ah, so that’s what the bloodstains are from…”

I was finally able to grasp the situation.

So that’s what the bloodstains scattered all over the sheets were!

He must have caused quite a commotion, pulling out a tube stuck in his chest.

Moreover, Yoonsung’s story didn’t end there.

“Suddenly, he started saying he had to charge into the mountains and asked me to cover him… holding the chest tube like a gun in one hand! I thought I was going crazy.”

“So what did you do?”

“All the lines were pulled out, so there was nowhere to inject. I gave him an intramuscular injection of haloperidol [an antipsychotic medication], and he calmed down a bit. Even that, the nurse barely managed to inject it while I was holding the old man down.”

Yoonsung shuddered.

The patient’s symptoms seemed to have gotten much worse overnight.

He certainly wasn’t this bad yesterday…

It made me realize how scary delirium can be once it starts.

“But what’s wrong with your nose?”

“I got hit.”

“You got hit by the patient?”

“Yeah, I was trying to hold him still, and I got punched in the face. The old man is surprisingly strong.”

Oh, dear.

I clicked my tongue.

Delirious patients do sometimes assault nurses or caregivers.

Later, they might say, ‘I thought the nurses were trying to kill me,’ to justify their actions.

That’s how severe the hallucinations and delusions become.

“Be careful when you’re on duty. He’s a war veteran, so his punches are pretty fierce.”

With that, my colleague disappeared, looking utterly fed up.

Looking around, the nurses who had worked the night shift also looked exhausted.

I approached the bed and examined the patient’s condition.

Wheeze— Wheeze—

The old man was sleeping soundly.

Of course, he didn’t look healthy, having only had lung cancer surgery two days ago.

But it was hard to believe that he was the same person who had been raging like a madman last night.

‘He’s a really unique patient.’

I suddenly became curious.

Does the hospital look like a battlefield in the old man’s mind?

If so, is there a way to alleviate this delirium?

‘I’m feeling motivated for the first time in a while.’

I was already wearing a challenging smile.

Attacking Grandpa was a new stimulus for me, who had been spending listless days in the ICU [Intensive Care Unit].

As a doctor, I wanted to know more about this patient.

And, if possible, I wanted to help.

Maybe there’s something I can do this time.

* * *

Soon, visiting hours would begin.

At each bed, family members were holding their patients’ hands and talking.

But no one came to visit Attacking Grandpa.

I asked Nurse Cha Yoori, who was sitting at the station.

“Does Attacking Grandpa not have any visitors?”

“I guess not. No one’s here.”

Nurse Cha Yoori’s answer felt familiar.

Was it because it reminded me of Grandma Kim Hyejung?

I felt sorry for the grandmothers lying alone in the ICU, and it was the same this time.

“But yesterday, a veteran’s association member visited.”

“Ah, that’s right, you said he was a Marine?”

“Yes. I think the lung cancer is probably due to the aftereffects of his participation in the war.”

War aftereffects, huh…

I opened his chart.

It briefly stated his participation in the Vietnam War.

But it was difficult to really know the patient with just a line or two of information.

It would be nice if I could find out a little more information…

‘Wait. Maybe I can find information that’s not on the chart online?’

I turned on my smartphone and opened a search engine, typing in a few keywords.

‘Vietnam War, Marine Corps, Attacking’

Soon, I was able to find a video.

It was a video interviewing people who had suffered from Agent Orange exposure after participating in the Vietnam War.

The video was over 10 years old, so the quality wasn’t very good, but it was still watchable.

I put on my earphones.

Skipping through the video, I was soon able to find the part I wanted.

The interviewer’s question.

Soon, Attacking Grandpa in the video answers.

He looks a little heavier than he does now, and a little healthier.