These memories will always have some special patients that I cannot forget (Part 2)
Many memories gradually fade, many faces gradually disappear, but there are always some special moments that cannot be forgotten for a long time.
It's still on the Yellow River bank, the small town in my memory will be dusty when the wind blows and the waste paper and plastic bags will fly into the air, I don't know where they will fall. In front of the hospital, the most bustling street is full of people. Shops repeatedly play 'The Mouse Loves Rice' and 'The First Snow of 2002' mixed with the calls of meat pies and pancakes, starting a busy day
After the early meeting of the Radiology Department, Director Wang left to say to me: Today there is a liver cancer patient scheduled for intervention treatment, the expert from the province will arrive around ten o'clock in the morning, you are responsible for cooperating with the expert's work
Okay, I know I will have to eat a lot of radiation, I immediately agreed. In those years, intervention treatment was a very high-level method, and there were only a few experts in the whole country who could do this, and even if someone could help do it, it was considered a great honor
I got the case from Director Wang. The patient was a 37-year-old male with primary liver cancer and metastasis to the right lung, chronic viral hepatitis
Abdominal ultrasound: multiple lesions in the liver, thickened gallbladder wall. Tumor markers AFP>1230ng/ml CEA 1.68ng/ml
CT shows: primary large-mass liver cancer and metastasis to the right lung, liver cirrhosis abdominal fluid, cholecystitis
When this patient was pushed into the department by his wife, I saw him and knew he didn't have much time, his face was dark, the pain of cancer and the psychological pressure had already made him look very weak. His wife's eyes revealed a strong and independent personality, with two eyes revealing decisiveness. She should have just returned from farming and hadn't covered her clothes with mud, let alone wore a white shirt with dirt on it
I took her to Director Wang's office, and when she saw Director Wang, she said: 'I know he won't live long, let him live one more day, and let our two children see him a day, our youngest child is only eight years old, let him see two children a day, I'll even sell my pots and pans' . As she said this, she burst into tears, having spent all her money to treat her husband, and she was left with nothing
'This five thousand yuan is three thousand yuan for the expert coming from the province, and the remaining two thousand yuan is for buying Japanese guidewires. We in the department don't earn a penny, don't cry, the expert will come.' I know that Director Wang said it was true. A few days ago, she said to her mother in the village that she would help her, and the village was the poorest in her family, and she was very strong and wouldn't let others take pity on her, so Director Wang wanted to see the intervention therapy treatment of liver cancer and delay the life effect,
The experts in the radiology department wore thick lead suits and hats and glasses, weighing nearly thirty kilograms, and within ten minutes, sweat broke out on their foreheads. I know that it's not easy to earn this money, and prolonged exposure to X-rays will cause cell mutations in the human body, and the risk of skin cancer, thyroid cancer and blood cancer is hundreds of times that of normal people, so the expert coming from the province to take out the outpatient treatment fee of three thousand yuan is not many, it also made me full of admiration
I was in charge of operating the machine, so I didn't contact the radiation, I only needed to prompt the expert about the depth and direction of the guidewire through the screen and control the X-ray exposure time
Under the screen, the guidewire slowly extended from the patient's femoral artery to the liver cancer lesion, gradually thinning, and in the black and white screen of the X-ray machine, it looked like a thin worm, when encountering the bifurcation of the blood vessels, I used my hand to feel for the correct direction. The expert also came into the control room from time to time to carefully study the shape and direction of the guidewire, less than half an hour, sweat soaked his work clothes
Time passed second by second, when about to enter the hepatic artery, the guidewire had entered the thinnest segment, and it was about to reach the lesion. The guidewire suddenly broke and tilted to one side, and the expert felt that the guidewire was no longer under his control, so he came out and said to Director Wang to get a new guidewire, do it again, hurry!
The new guidewire needed to be persuaded again to get 2000 yuan from the logistics department, so Director Wang had to explain to the waiting family in front of the door: 'It went smoothly, but the guidewire broke, you need to get 2000 yuan again from the logistics department to buy a new one, hurry and see if you can borrow money from someone''.
The strong woman panicked and realized that her husband was waiting for her on the operating table to find a life-saving money. She hurried out of the hospital. We could only wait in the office
About half an hour later, with her panicked footsteps and tears, she returned. She trembled and took out five and ten yuan bills and a stack of zeros and said: 'Director, I only borrowed 800 yuan, I really couldn't borrow it. If that's the case, we won't do it, God doesn't favor us.' Her cries echoed in my heart
I couldn't stand it anymore, I took out all my money and said to her son, 'Let me contribute one.' Although I don't have much money, I know that this tragic scene often happens in the hospital, but I don't want my conscience to be so quickly numb.
After the operation ended, watching their family walk away, it was like a series of mottled photos remained in my mind
Hemingway once encountered a little girl on the beach during a vacation and threw the stranded fish back into the sea. Hemingway advised her: 'There are too many fish, you can't save them. No one cares'
Hemingway
