Fifth Vital [EN]: Chapter 404

405. What is the Child’s Diagnosis?

Overcome with fear, the child wet herself, and blood leaked from her diaper, running down her legs.

That wasn’t all.

At the peak of her terror, the child gasped for breath as if about to faint. Taekyung and Kim Yeonju immediately checked on her and tried to soothe her.

“Jina, it’s okay. The doctor won’t take you to the hospital.”

“Huh! Mommy……! No! I don’t want to go to the hospital…….”

“Let’s breathe slowly, Jina, without talking, okay?”

“Haa…….”

“That’s right. Good job.”

“Jina, breathe like the doctor. Look! Mommy is breathing like this too. Huff!”

Fortunately, the child didn’t faint and her condition improved.

“I don’t want to go to the hospital.”

“Okay, we won’t go. Mommy promises. We won’t go to the hospital. Shall we go up to the second floor?”

“Okay.”

Kim Yeonju quickly picked up Jina and went up to the second floor.

“Hey? Jae-san, don’t you think it’ll be hard for Jina to get treatment at the hospital in her condition? How can she go to the hospital when she’s like this?”

“Not that again! Please stop!”

Shocked by his child’s state, Lee Jae-san finally exploded at his mother.

Of course, what Madam Ko had said was out of genuine concern for her granddaughter, rather than distrust of hospitals.

However, seeing his daughter in such a pitiful state, he couldn’t take his mother’s concern to heart.

“What have you been doing to her all this time?”

“……!”

“Is Jina like this because of you?”

Madam Ko, who was greatly shocked by her granddaughter’s appearance, seemed even more taken aback by her son’s sharp words.

“Jae, Jae-san……?”

“Why do you keep saying those things and instilling them in her? You’ve made her so terrified of hospitals that she wets herself. Are you satisfied now?”

“How can you say such things? Are you saying that it’s all my fault that Jina is sick? Is that what you want to say?”

“You know I didn’t mean it that way.”

“But that’s what you’re saying. Do you think I feel good about this? Huh? Fine, it’s my fault.”

“Ha!”

“San’s death and Jina being like this are all my fault. Are you happy now?”

Lee Jae-san and Madam Ko, both overwhelmed by the sight of their daughter and granddaughter, ended up in a heated argument. However, Taekyung was so focused on the child that he didn’t even hear them.

The sight of the child being so terrified at the mention of the hospital was shocking not only to her family but also to Taekyung.

‘The child’s psychological state is not good.’

It never rains but it pours. Just when one problem was solved, another bigger one arose.

He had expected the child to be somewhat afraid of hospitals, but he didn’t realize she would feel such intense fear and terror.

Taekyung’s mind was complicated.

It wasn’t just that she disliked hospitals; she was rejecting them altogether.

He couldn’t forcibly take a child who thought she would die if she went to the hospital, which was a dilemma.

Before the surgery, she would need to undergo tests. But in her current state, it would be difficult to even conduct the tests.

Sometimes, patients get nervous before surgery. In such cases, they wait until the tension eases before proceeding with the tests.

However, for Jina, who was terrified of the hospital environment, it seemed impossible to alleviate her anxiety inside the hospital.

The child didn’t have much time.

As surgery was urgently needed, Taekyung had to make a decision.

“Do you know how upset I am right now?”

“I’m just as upset and struggling as you are. You’re not the only one having a hard time.”

“Please calm down, both of you.”

Taekyung stopped Lee Jae-san and Madam Ko, who were arguing intensely as if venting their pent-up emotions.

“I understand that you’re both upset, but we don’t have time for this right now.”

“I’m sorry for showing you this side of us, especially since you came all the way to our house, Doctor.”

“It’s okay, don’t worry about it. More importantly, Jina is extremely afraid of going to the hospital.”

“We knew she was afraid of hospitals after that incident, but I didn’t realize it was this bad. Doctor, my wife and I will persuade her together and take her to the hospital tomorrow.”

“I’ll help persuade her too.”

Having calmed their emotions, the son and mother knew that the most important thing was to soothe the child.

“I understand what you’re saying, but unfortunately, it won’t be easy.”

“Then what should we do? Should we just take her by force?”

“No. Don’t do that.”

“Then won’t my daughter be able to get treatment?”

“No. She can get treatment. She must get treatment.”

“How?”

“At home.”

Taekyung, who had been contemplating, looked at them and spoke as if he had made a decision.

“……!”

“A-At home?”

Treating her at home meant performing surgery at home.

“Is that possible?”

“We have to make it possible.”

“That sounds good. Jina won’t be so scared if she’s treated at home.”

Unlike Lee Jae-san, who was surprised by the idea of home treatment, Madam Ko seemed pleased. Although she had allowed treatment at the hospital, she had been uneasy, so she thought Taekyung’s decision was better.

“Then let’s schedule the surgery for tomorrow.”

“Doctor, thank you so much.”

“Save your thanks until after the surgery is successful. Then, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Having made the decision, Taekyung told Lee Jae-san about the surgery and made one request before leaving the house.

* * *

Our Hospital-

“What’s going on?”

After arriving at the hospital and focusing on his work, Taekyung finished his scheduled evening surgery. With some free time, he called several staff members to the medical office.

“What’s up, Soo-ssam?”

“I don’t know…….”

The staff members who gathered in the medical office were curious about why they had been called.

“I didn’t hear anything from the director, so I’m not sure, but maybe it’s about the home visit?”

“I think so too. There weren’t any severe emergency patients today, either in the ward or outpatient clinic. I don’t think he’d have anything else to say besides the external consultation.”

Lee Eui-jin said, following Nurse Lim Jeong-suk.

“By the way, has anyone heard how that external consultation went?”

“I haven’t heard anything.”

“Me neither.”

The staff members looked at each other, but no one had heard about the results of the home visit.

“You don’t know either, Eui-jin ssam?”

“No, I was going to ask earlier, but he didn’t look good, so I didn’t ask.”

“Yeah. The director didn’t even smile after the surgery today.”

Taekyung always encouraged the staff with a smile after surgery. But today, he quickly left the operating room after saying they had done a good job.

The staff members had rarely seen Taekyung look so serious, so it wasn’t easy to approach him as usual.

“I’m a little nervous because the director doesn’t usually call us in like this.”

“Maybe the patient he saw wasn’t doing well…….”

Clang-

While the staff members were making all sorts of guesses, Taekyung entered the medical office from the examination room.

“I’m sorry for calling you in so suddenly. I have a favor to ask, so I urgently called you in.”

“Director, is it about the home visit today?”

“That’s right. The reason I went for a home visit today is that the child’s father came to ask for a consultation because they couldn’t come to the hospital.”

“I don’t quite understand why they can’t come to the hospital?”

“The child had an older brother who died a few years ago due to a medical accident at Shinhwa University Hospital.”

Taekyung told the staff about the terrible incident that Lee Jae-san’s family had experienced.

He explained in detail how the family distrusted hospitals and had severe trauma because of the incident, as well as Jina’s current condition.

“How could something like this happen…….”

“The child is so pitiful.”

The staff members who heard the explanation were worried about the child.

“You just said the child had an abdominal mass and hematuria [blood in the urine]. What is the child’s diagnosis?”

“The child’s diagnosis is Wilms’ tumor (kidney cancer).”

He needed to confirm it tomorrow, but Taekyung thought it was most likely Wilms’ tumor.

Also known as nephroblastoma, it is a type of kidney cancer that commonly occurs in infants and young children.

In many cases, it is diagnosed when an abnormality is felt in the child’s abdomen without any other symptoms.

Some patients with this disease may also show symptoms such as fever, anemia, and hematuria.

“Director? If it’s Wilms’ tumor, she needs surgery right away.”

“That’s right. But the child’s psychological fear and terror of hospitals are so great that it won’t be easy to bring her to the hospital for proper treatment.”

“We can’t just leave her like this. What should we do?”

“The child is pitiful, but for treatment, it’s best to bring her to the hospital, even if it’s by force.”

“Team Leader Choi! Didn’t you hear what the director said? She almost fainted.”

“But we can’t just leave a child with a tumor in her stomach.”

“We shouldn’t.”

The staff members who heard the child’s diagnosis had conflicting opinions.

“Isn’t there a way?”

“It’s not that there’s no way at all.”

“What is it?”

“I’m thinking of performing the surgery at the child’s home.”

“Home!”

“At home?”

“Did you just say at home?”

“That’s right.”

No matter how skilled Taekyung was, he couldn’t perform the surgery alone.

He needed the help of the staff while performing the surgery in the operating room, and this was especially true in this case.

It was nearly impossible to perform the surgery alone because he had to operate in a place that wasn’t a perfectly set-up operating room.

“Of course, I know my words sound absurd. But right now, it’s more important to get the child operated on as soon as possible than to worry about the details. I hope you all trust me and help me.”

“Yes, Director. We’ll do it.”

After Taekyung anxiously told the staff, the silence was broken by Eui-jin.

“I’ll participate in the surgery.”

“I’ll do it too.”

“Me too.”

“Then I’ll help with the preparations.”

As if the staff’s initial hesitation and concerns were meaningless, not a single staff member objected.

“Thank you for listening to my opinion, even though you must all be surprised.”

“If you’ve worked with the director, including me, it’s not that surprising.”

“Same here.”

The staff members already knew Taekyung’s personality, that he would do anything to save a patient.

He had opened a patient’s chest and broken their ribs right in the emergency room to save them, and he had performed emergency treatment on a patient with a severed leg in a place other than the operating room.

If it weren’t for the staff at our hospital, it would have been a huge scandal. But the staff, who had already had many amazing experiences saving patients, had become accustomed to Taekyung’s actions.

“It’s hard to do this in Korea, but it’s quite common in foreign countries.”

Eui-jin, who had volunteered as part of a medical 봉사 [Bongsa means service or volunteer work] organization in a foreign country a few years ago, was more familiar with the situation than she thought.

In remote areas, surgeries were sometimes performed at home to save the lives of urgent patients who could not come to the hospital.

“Medical 봉사 is a bit different, but in war zones, they sometimes operate on soldiers in 야전 [Yajeon means field] tents.”

“That’s right.”

Taekyung was grateful to the staff who offered their opinions and trusted him.

“Director, will you be operating tomorrow?”

“Yes, I’ll be operating tomorrow. So, there’s a lot to prepare from now on.”

Taekyung and the staff began to carefully prepare everything needed for the surgery.