Fifth Vital [EN]: Chapter 178

178. Not the Arm, but the Leg

“Welcome.”

“I’m here for a checkup.”

The woman who entered through the back door headed straight to the reception desk.

“What brings you in today?”

“I’ve been feeling really unwell. Do you handle emergency room visits here?”

“Of course. Which department are you looking for?”

“My stomach is really upset…”

The woman, who was answering the receptionist, suddenly stopped speaking and collapsed to the floor.

“Oh my! Are you alright?”

Startled by the woman’s sudden action, the receptionist rushed out from behind the desk, helped her up, and guided her to a chair.

“I’m just feeling weak. Thank you.”

“Don’t push yourself, just sit here.”

The receptionist seated the woman and brought a form from the desk, sitting down next to her.

“Is this your first time at our hospital?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Then, please write your name and phone number here.”

“Okay.”

The woman, who had received the paper and pen from the receptionist, paused before writing her name and phone number.

“If you’re not feeling well, I can fill it out for you.”

“Ah, no. It’s okay. I just felt a little dizzy. Where’s my handkerchief…”

The woman declined the receptionist’s offer and rummaged through her bag.

Although she said she was looking for a handkerchief, her hand clearly passed the handkerchief visible at the opening of the bag. After tapping and checking her phone a few times inside the bag, she filled out the memo the receptionist had given her.

“Here, I’ve filled it out.”

“Okay. You can choose between an outpatient visit and an emergency room visit. Which would you prefer?”

“Will it take long to be seen in the emergency room?”

“We don’t have too many patients right now, so you should be seen relatively quickly. However, if a critical patient arrives, they will be seen first.”

“Yes, I understand. Then, I’ll go to the emergency room.”

“Yes, just follow that hallway a little bit, and it connects to the emergency room. Would you like me to assist you, since you’re feeling unwell?”

“No, it’s okay. I can go alone. Thank you.”

The woman greeted the receptionist and entered the emergency room.

“Hmm!”

“Young-i, what’s wrong?”

The receptionist, who had returned to the desk, tilted her head as she sat down, and the colleague next to her asked.

“Something feels strange.”

“What do you mean strange?”

“When that patient was looking for something in her bag, I think I unintentionally saw something.”

A moment ago, when the woman was rummaging through her bag, claiming to be looking for a handkerchief, desk clerk Kim Young-i briefly caught sight of a strange object. However, it happened so quickly that she wasn’t sure if what she saw was correct.

“What did you see that made you look like that?”

“It was a gu…”

“What? Why are you stopping mid-sentence?”

“I think I might have been mistaken.”

“How boring. But wasn’t that patient a celebrity?”

“A celebrity?”

“She was tall and slender, and when she took off her sunglasses earlier, her face was small and pretty, wasn’t it?”

“Really? I’m not sure. I didn’t get a good look at her face. But if she were a celebrity, wouldn’t she have come with a manager?”

“I guess so. A celebrity probably wouldn’t come to the hospital alone at this hour. And there are many pretty and handsome people these days, even if they’re not celebrities.”

“That’s true.”

Tap- Tap-

After finishing the conversation, receptionist Kim Young-i continued her computer work, recalling what she had seen in the woman’s bag earlier.

* * *

“Ah! Doctor. It hurts so much.”

“Please adjust the drip here.”

“I’m… I am… Quickly, bring my wife here.”

Amidst the drunken ramblings and the groans of patients coming from all directions, the woman sitting on the bed felt unnecessarily anxious.

‘It shouldn’t take too long? I have to do it here…’

Worried that her examination might be delayed, the woman looked at her phone and was startled to see that her shirt sleeve had ridden up. She quickly pulled it down.

Swish-

“Hello.”

Nurse Lim Jeong-suk entered the area of the bed where the woman was.

“Didn’t you have your blood pressure taken earlier? You didn’t give me the paper.”

“Ah, here it is. I’m sorry. I was out of it.”

The woman handed over the crumpled blood pressure measurement result, looking embarrassed.

“The paper is crumpled, what should we do?”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s okay.”

“Will it take long to see the doctor?”

“No. The doctor will be here soon. Just wait a moment.”

“Okay.”

Swish-

Nurse Lim Jeong-suk left the bed and headed to the nurse’s station.

“New patient.”

“Which bed number?”

“Bed 17.”

“Doctor Choi?”

Dr. Tae-kyung called out to Choi Mo-na, who was getting up from her chair.

“Yes, Doctor.”

“I’ll take a look. Doctor Choi, please do the dressing for patient 201.”

Tae-kyung volunteered to examine the patient to give his junior colleague, who had a lot of work today, a break.

“Yes, I understand.”

“What bed number did you say earlier?”

“Bed 17, a 33-year-old female patient. She said her stomach is very upset and wants to have an endoscopy [a procedure where a flexible tube with a camera is inserted into the body to view internal organs].”

“An endoscopy… What’s her blood pressure?”

“100 over 64, and her pulse is 98. She said she’s feeling unwell.”

Having heard the information about the patient, Tae-kyung headed straight to the bed.

Swish-

“Hello, Ms. Lee Min-hwi.”

“Yes, hello.”

“I heard you’re having stomach problems.”

As Tae-kyung entered the bed area, the woman straightened her posture and focused. Then, she began to pour out her painful symptoms without stopping.

“Yes. My stomach has always been a bit weak. So I’m careful about what I eat, but I’ve been having pain little by little since a week ago, and it’s been really painful since two days ago. It feels like someone is squeezing my stomach with their hands, and then suddenly I feel a burning pain, and it feels like something is blocked.”

“Have you been eating well?”

“No. I haven’t been eating well, and I even threw up blood yesterday and today.”

“You threw up blood?”

Tae-kyung, who had been listening calmly, focused on the words ‘threw up blood.’

“Yes, I threw up quite a bit. Doctor, I’m really scared. So I was going to go to the hospital tomorrow, but then I suddenly felt pain again, so I came to the emergency room for a checkup. Can I get an endoscopy?”

Lee Min-hwi asked, emphasizing the endoscopy once again.

“First, we’ll proceed with the endoscopy after seeing the test results.”

“Doctor. Of course, I have to get the tests, but please let me get an endoscopy. I’m really struggling.”

“Ms. Lee, can you look at me for a moment? I’m going to check a few things now.”

“Yes.”

“Tilt your head up slightly.”

Tae-kyung took out a medical flashlight from his gown pocket and pulled down the skin under Lee Min-hwi’s eyes to check the inside.

“Can you stick out your tongue?”

“My tongue?”

“Yes.”

Lee Min-hwi hesitated for a moment and then stuck out her tongue.

‘It looks okay visually…’

There was a reason why Tae-kyung checked the underside of her eyes and her tongue with a simple physical examination.

It was to check the extent of blood deficiency due to the patient’s claim of throwing up blood.

When a person loses a lot of blood, the area under the eyes, which is normally red, appears pale with no blood, and the tongue also appears dry.

However, unlike the patient’s claim of throwing up a lot of blood, there were no special symptoms visible in the physical examination just performed.

‘The smell is also quite good at this level?’

Moreover, the fifth vital [body odor] was also showing a not-so-severe odor among the stage 2 ammonia. [Ammonia is a chemical compound with a pungent smell; its presence in body odor can indicate certain medical conditions.]

Of course, the stage of the odor could change at any time. Tae-kyung decided to proceed with the examination for now and asked the patient a few more questions.

“Ms. Lee, you said you threw up a lot of blood earlier, right?”

“Yes, I was so surprised.”

“You must have been surprised, but didn’t you go to the hospital right away?”

“I had an important task at work for the past few days, so I didn’t have time until the evening.”

“Then, did you see bubbles in the blood you threw up?”

“Bubbles…?”

Lee Min-hwi hesitated for a moment and continued.

“It seemed like there were some, and it seemed like there weren’t… I was so surprised that I cleaned it up quickly, so I couldn’t check it carefully. It’s a bit much to look at blood closely, you know.”

“What was the color like?”

“I don’t know that well either…”

“Was there food mixed in?”

“I don’t think there was… Oh! No, I think there might have been a little.”

Lee Min-hwi couldn’t answer any of Tae-kyung’s questions in detail and vaguely glossed over them. Moreover, she gave somewhat ambiguous answers, saying it seemed like it.

“Ah! That’s right. I have a picture of it. Just a moment.”

Lee Min-hwi brought her phone close and searched for something for a long time, then turned the screen to Tae-kyung.

“This is it.”

Lee Min-hwi, who had said until just now that she was too surprised to see it in detail, showed a picture of the blood she had shed.

“This is the blood you shed?”

Tae-kyung frowned slightly as soon as he saw the picture.

“Yes. That’s right.”

“Ms. Lee, are you not dizzy?”

“I don’t think I have anything like that.”

“Okay, I understand. Nurse Lim, please help the patient with the examination.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

Swish-

“Excuse me, Doctor!”

As Tae-kyung gave the order to Nurse Lim Jeong-suk and opened the curtain to leave the bed area, Lee Min-hwi called out urgently.

“Yes, Ms. Lee.”

“When the test results come out and I get an endoscopy, can I have it done with sedation? I’m too scared to do it without sedation.”

“Ms. Lee, don’t worry too much, and let’s start with the examination first.”

Tae-kyung calmly soothed the patient, who was expressing her urgency, and left the bed area.

‘What is it?’

Tae-kyung walked to the nurse’s station, recalling what the patient had said.

‘She lost that much blood, but she doesn’t have any reactions?’

The picture that Lee Min-hwi had just shown had a considerable amount of blood at a glance.

It was an amount that would worry any doctor, more appropriately described as ‘soaked’ rather than ‘spilled.’ However, unlike the woman’s verbal complaints of pain, something felt a bit awkward.

‘It’s unsettling…’

Tae-kyung felt uneasy and unsettled after seeing the patient.

Usually, when patients come to the hospital and are asked to describe their painful symptoms, they list them in considerable detail.

Of course, Lee Min-hwi also described the painful aspects in quite detail, saying that her stomach felt like it was being squeezed. However, there was something unnatural about the part where she said she threw up blood.

‘This, something’s up.’

Tae-kyung felt uneasy, but he decided to look at the test results before judging the patient rashly.

“Ms. Lee?”

After Tae-kyung headed to the nurse’s station, the nurse entered the bed area where Lee Min-hwi was.

“I’m going to draw some blood for the test.”

“Ah, yes.”

“Then, can you please roll up your sleeve for a moment?”

“……!”

The nurse asked her to roll up her sleeve for the blood draw. But a slightly flustered look crossed Lee Min-hwi’s face, and an unexpected answer came back.

“I can’t do it on my arm?”

“Excuse me?”

Lee Min-hwi was clutching the end of her sleeve as if it were a precious treasure.

“Excuse me, Nurse. Can you draw blood from my leg instead of my arm?”

“Your leg?”

“Yes, please draw blood from my leg.”