Chapter 651: Chapter 587_2 Chapter 651: Chapter 587_2 Everyone had a long day at work. Before signing off, they took a short break and chatted.

Cui Xubing took a leave to check his son out of the hospital. He had settled the bills, packed everything with his wife, and planned to stay at the Tri-Bo Hotel for one night before taking the high-speed rail home the next morning.

Before they left, Old Cui and his wife carried a banner, looking for Professor Yang with their son.

The banner read: Miraculous healing hands!

These words were Old Cui’s own thinking and handwriting, he had it made into a banner according to his design.

Head Nurse Cai guided them, “The professor just entered his office.”

Old Cui was delighted. After all, his son was the first patient to benefit from Professor Yang’s new technique. The world’s first.

No matter what, being the world’s first was worth boasting about.

Old Cui found Professor Yang in his office, just as he opened the door.

“Bow!”

Old Cui instructed.

Xiao Cui stood up straight and bowed in gratitude in front of Professor Yang.

“Lower, lower, even lower!”

Old Cui kept instructing, feeling that his son’s bow was not low enough.

His son’s situation had been a burden for the past few years. Now, that burden was finally lifted.

Afterwards, August and Robert took turns taking photos with the Chinese banner, fascinated by it.

Then, Robert also pulled Takahashi in, and the three took a group photo.

“Teacher Zhang, does this banner symbolize a medal?” August asked Zhang Lin.

Zhang Lin nodded solemnly, “This is a medal awarded by the patients. I hope when you return to your country, you can also earn such medals. It’s the highest honor for a doctor. The more medals you have, the more respect you receive from patients.”

August quietly committed this to memory. A medal awarded by patients was indeed the highest honor.

Robert, who had been silent by the side, sent the photo of the banner to his assistant Barel.

“Make a banner like this and hang it in my office – no, make ten – twenty!”

—
Li Jun was still in the ICU, not breathing on his own, and had not regained consciousness.

After a brief recovery of consciousness last time, he had fallen back into a coma.

Every day’s medical expenses amounted to sixty to seventy thousand, out of which thirty to forty thousand had to be paid out-of-pocket. There was no other choice, everything related to ECMO had to be self-funded.

Without this machine to sustain his life, Li Jun’s heart and breathing would have stopped long ago.

Professor Yang came to see Li Jun twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Upon seeing Professor Yang, the ICU director shook his head, “It seems he won’t be able to hang on for much longer. His coagulation function is too disordered. Despite increasing the dosage of anticoagulant, his digestive tract bled last night. Fortunately, the bleeding wasn’t severe. Upon lowering the dosage of anticoagulant, blood clots formed during hemodialysis. I have never seen such a difficult patient. If conditions permitted, a kidney transplant would be the way out, it would prevent the use of anticoagulants. But under his current condition, how could we carry out a transplant? The family insists on rescuing him.”

Professor Yang remained silent, staring at Li Jun’s monitoring screen for a long while before he finally spoke.

“Can we find a balance between the two?”

The ICU director nodded, “I’ll try. I am trying to look for this balance, and I hope I can find it.”

If they managed to find this balance, it could at least buy some time. If there’s hope for him to regain consciousness and the conditions permit, they could immediately perform a kidney transplant. This way, he could get past this critical point.

“Yesterday, the patient in the next ward was declared brain dead and is currently being kept alive for 24 days by ECMO. It still doesn’t look promising. Even with a machine to keep him alive, he won’t be able to hang on for much longer.” The ICU director sighed.

Looking at the most recent chest x-ray, compared to the previous CT, Li Jun seemed to have hope of regaining consciousness.

The key was to find a balance between coagulation and anticoagulation. Otherwise, the coagulation system could easily collapse, resulting in either internal organ bleeding or organ embolism.

In such a case, the entire organ system would go into sequential collapse, also known as multiple organ dysfunction syndrome.

If they could find a balance and stabilize the coagulation system, preventing fatal internal organ bleeding and no longer worsening lung embolism, there would be hope of getting through the critical period.

The ICU director walked Professor Yang out. As Professor Yang reached the door and it opened, he heard a commotion from the family waiting area, followed by some shoving.

“Oh, that’s an organ donation coordinator. They were trying to persuade the family of last night’s patient, who was declared brain dead, to donate their organs. The family scolded and slapped them. Security just managed it, why are they back already?” The ICU director wondered, following Professor Yang out.

It wasn’t uncommon to see organ donation coordinators around the ICU and Emergency Department.

Their work was easily misunderstood. Patients were in critical condition but not yet dead, and they were urging the family to donate organs. In Chinese traditional culture, most of the time they ended up either being scolded or beaten.

They were seen by family members as vultures, eyeing the organs while the person was alive.

In fact, organ donation coordinators were a relatively new profession. As of January 1, 2015, China completely phased out the use of organs from executed prisoners, making voluntary donation from citizens the only legal source of transplants.

Huang Jiefu, the chairman of the China Organ Donation and Transplant Committee, said at that time, “This is the first, and the most critical, step towards fairness.”

However, in 2015, only 25,959 people had voluntarily registered for organ donation.

This meant that due to tradition and awareness, the majority of people did not approve of organ donation.

Therefore, the sources for organ transplants were extremely limited, and many people couldn’t find donors.

The ICU Director raised his voice, “Stop arguing! If you carry on, I will call security. If you have something to discuss, take it outside. Don’t argue here.”

One female family member grabbed the organ donation coordinator by the hair while another was cursing, “The person isn’t even dead yet and you’re already eyeing their organs. Have you no humanity?”

The coordinator was still rather naive, coming back for more despite having been slapped.

The Director of ICU grabbed the family member’s hand, “Enough, this is his job. He’s trying to do a good thing, save other people’s lives. If you’re unwilling, just say no, there’s no need for violence.”

The woman let go, allowing the coordinator to escape.

“Why are you back here? Wasn’t being slapped once enough? Now go.” After helping him get out of the situation, the ICU director ensured the coordinator left quickly and smoothly.

Upon seeing Professor Yang coming out, Qin Xiaowei immediately came over.

“Professor Yang!”

“I just had a look, the condition is still very critical. He could be in danger at any moment. We’re doing everything we can.” Professor Yang informed Qin Xiaowei of the newest developments.

Qin Xiaowei nodded.

“I heard from the doctors about Ajun’s condition. It would’ve been better if I had donated my kidney to him earlier. If I had, we wouldn’t be in such a mess right now.” Qin Xiaowei seemed to blame himself.

It had been decided that the Fly-Knife surgery would be performed at Branch One on Friday. It wasn’t appropriate, or necessary, to bring the entire team.

Assistant Song Zimo and equipment nurse Xiao Su should be enough.

Upon hearing that Professor Yang was going to perform the Fly-Knife Surgery at Branch One, Robert and August persuaded him passionately to let them join.

To them, their internship wasn’t just about learning new techniques, but also about experiencing Chinese medical culture, which meant entering the circle of Chinese people.

When Takahashi heard about the two of them accompanying the professor for the Fly-Knife Surgery, he felt he would miss out if he didn’t go. So, he insisted on going too.

Well, that’s fine. It wouldn’t hurt to have extra hands to carry the patient.

Branch One would be performing this kind of surgery for the first time, and they would likely not be familiar with the positioning of the patient. Letting these guys serve as positioning masters would allow them to experience Chinese Fly-Knife Culture.

Professor Yang agreed.