Chapter 122: If... Joining... (Extra for Alliance Hierarch z for the month)
Emergency rooms never have set meal times!
As twelve o’clock approached, a message came from the nurse’s station!
“An unconscious patient in shock is being delivered by emergency services, prepare for resuscitation!”
Chen Cang was about to get off work for a meal when he heard the summons from the nurse’s station.
With no appetite for food, he quickly redressed in his white coat and hustled out to await the ambulance’s arrival.
Shortly after!
The ambulance stopped at the entrance of the emergency department, and the patient was wheeled out.
Chen Cang hurried forward to meet the emergency center doctor accompanying the patient, asking, “What’s the patient’s condition?”
Before the young doctor could reply, a crying voice was heard from behind, “Doctor! Please save my dad…”
Chen Cang was about to comfort the woman but suddenly froze in shock!
The woman seemed very familiar, too familiar!
Chen Cang slapped his forehead; it was the sophisticated lady in luxurious clothes with an air of “refinement” who had been there last Friday, pushing her father in a wheelchair to buy medicine.
Yes, it was that woman who had also studied medicine!
At this thought, Chen Cang’s face suddenly turned pale!
Could it be that the old man… had encountered a serious issue!
After all, Chen Cang had diagnosed him with acute intestinal obstruction at the time, and the lady had insisted on taking her father to the Eastern University hospital, even signing a guarantee with absolute confidence, which Chen Cang remembered clearly!
Had they not gone to see a doctor?
If they had, surely the doctors there would have noticed, right?
With these thoughts, Chen Cang felt a heavy weight in his heart.
The emergency doctor from the ambulance informed Chen Cang of the patient’s condition and then admonished, “The patient has been unconscious since 1 arrived, his blood pressure is very unstable after being put on the monitor, and he has a weak respiratory rate… there was a cardiac arrest…”
Chen Cang’s face turned pale once again!
He quickly called out to a nurse, “Xiaolin, ventilator! Monitor!”
Xiaolin was eating, but upon hearing Chen Cang’s call, she put down her utensils and ran out, pushing the patient toward the resuscitation room.
The lady, seeming to recognize Chen Cang, said hastily, “Doctor! It was you… you… you were right, that day I was wrong, I apologize to you, you must save my dad, he’s the only father 1 have…”
Her face, once so composed, was now streaked with tears and snot, her appearance completely disheveled, as she suddenly knelt before Chen Cang with a thud, clutching at his legs and begging.
Chen Cang hurriedly lifted the woman up, “Calm down, we need to start resuscitation!”
The woman was crying out hoarsely, “I was wrong, Doctor! Please, save my dad. I’ll do whatever you ask…”
Chen Cang sighed, pulled away from her, and turned to enter the resuscitation room.
The woman was probably not just kneeling for herself, but for her father; she was repenting…
Chen Cang entered the resuscitation room and quickly adjusted the ventilator, taking care of some treatment details.
But after a busy afternoon, by half-past two, all the results from the tests and exams were in!
The “Mentorship” that had always been reminding Chen Cang was now silent…
Chen Cang and Xiaolin took the elderly man for a CT scan, an ultrasound, and conducted every possible examination…
By the time it was around two or three o’clock, both were so exhausted they collapsed on the ground.
Xiaolin spoke in a weak voice, “Dr. Chen… is there still hope?”
That question made Chen Cang’s nose tingle with emotion.
He took a deep breath, got to his feet, and as he did, pulled Xiaolin up, “You’ve worked hard, Xiaolin. You didn’t get any rest this afternoon.”
Xiaolin shook her head, tears flickering in her eyes, “Is there still hope? Dr. Chen… is there really no way?”
Xiaolin clutched at Chen Cang’s white coat desperately, her gaze filled with pleading.
Superior mesenteric artery embolism, and much time had already passed…
At this moment, the elderly patient lying next to the monitor had already developed multi-organ failure.
Being over eighty years old, the family mentioned multi-organ failure, mesenteric artery embolism…
Chen Cang sighed, “Surgery is possible, but the survival rate is almost zero!”
This was the answer given by the master teacher’s guidance.
Because the old man’s overall condition was too poor, relieving intestinal obstruction would be meaningless, but… if only I could have done more three days ago…
At this thought, Chen Cang sighed again.
He could not change the patient’s family after all.
Chen Cang stood up and walked out to see the woman collapsed on the ground, sobbing desperately and covering her face with her hands. He said, “This is…”
Before he could finish his words, the woman suddenly looked up, her tone filled with despair, “Is this a critical condition notice?”
Chen Cang nodded silently, “Yes.”
The woman leaned against the wall with her hand, staggeringly standing up, “How long can my father hold on?”
Chen Cang replied, “He could die at any moment, won’t last long, it’s hard to specify the time.”
“If it hadn’t been in time…”
Just as Chen Cang was about to speak, he saw the woman’s tears streaming down uncontrollably again.
After thinking for a bit, he swallowed what he was about to say…
After a long while…
“Doctor, wait for me, I need to go to the restroom!” The woman dried her tears with her clothes, stood up, and made a trip to the restroom.
“I’m filled with regret now… I should have listened to you, I should have gone for the check-up, I should have listened to the doctors… I shouldn’t have decided on my own…” she murmured incessantly as she signed the papers.
Her voice was very soft, possibly meant only for herself to hear…
Driven by curiosity, Chen Cang asked, “Didn’t you go to East University First Hospital?”
The woman spoke faintly, “After I left here, I didn’t go to the hospital. 1 bought some medicine from a nearby pharmacy and took my father to a clinic for anti-inflammatory and anti-infection treatment for gastroenteritis.”
“After returning home at night, I thought he was feeling better and had fallen asleep… but then…”
“I caused his death… I am the real killer… I thought it was just a stomach ache, worrying too many tests wouldn’t be good for him.”
The conversation couldn’t continue, the woman was struggling to speak, sobbing uncontrollably, and even showing signs of hyperventilation.
Less than an hour later, when the afternoon’s remaining sunlight spilled into the emergency department,
The elderly man passed away, having stopped breathing and his heart beating.
The woman declined CPR and defibrillation, just sitting quietly beside the old man.
After a while, several family members rushed in hurriedly, men and women alike.
But none of them were as heartbroken as the woman; they appeared quite composed, as if they had anticipated the outcome.
The woman didn’t make a sound, just woodenly nodding her head, “It’s my fault, all my fault… I killed Dad.”
Chen Cang could not help but say, “This could also be a release.”
Chen Cang didn’t even know whom his words were for: the old man, the child beside him, or the woman.
At the moment when the endotracheal tube was removed, Chen Cang saw a faint glimmer of light reflecting in the old man’s dull eyes.
It was the cold light of the resuscitation room.
Turning around, Chen Cang gave the family time to say goodbye but saw the woman collapsed on the ground, her face streaked with two more tear tracks…
Chen Cang sighed and turned to leave.
In the hospital, he had seen life and death parted many times, but faced with the arrival of death, Chen Cang’s heart could still not become cold.
After exiting, he saw Xiao Lin crying in the corner like a child, with a pouting mouth and tears streaming down his face unceasingly.
If only she had listened to one more piece of advice in the beginning, not made decisions on her own, how much better it would have been!