Surgery Godfather
Chapter 1132 - 907: Little Li, Your Hands Must Be Steady!

Chapter 1132: Chapter 907: Little Li, Your Hands Must Be Steady!

Because the pain of the Elderly Director was extremely severe, and pain sometimes could be lethal, Yang Ping didn’t delay and immediately sent a vehicle. Li Min and Li Guodong went together in the vehicle to Guandu Town in North Bridge County.

From the Provincial City to North Bridge County, it was almost three hundred kilometers, a round trip would take over six hours. Now it was just after five o’clock, and they estimated they would return to the hospital around midnight.

Before departing, Yang Ping instructed Li Guodong to take some medications with him, a vial each of ropivacaine and dibazol. Upon arrival at Guandu Hospital, they were to immediately administer a sciatic nerve block to the Elderly Director so he could come to Sanbo Hospital comfortably and without pain.

Local blockade is a very effective symptomatic treatment method, especially suitable for primary hospitals. If mastered well, it can alleviate various joint pains with just one injection.

Yang Ping had already handed over the various local blockade techniques to Doctor Li Min, including the method for sciatic nerve pain, which Li Min had mastered proficiently.

The journey was smooth, and around midnight, the Elderly Director was brought to Sanbo Hospital. Because Li Min had already administered a sciatic nerve block, the director had a safe trip without any pain and comfortably slept in the vehicle.

Thus, by the time they arrived at Sanbo Hospital, the movement of the stretcher woke up the comfortably sleeping Elderly Director who, in a drowsy state, asked, "Where is this?"

"This is Sanbo Hospital," Li Min said.

"Sanbo Hospital? Why come here?" The Elderly Director was momentarily confused.

Li Min said, "Didn’t we come here to treat you? Have you forgotten?"

The Elderly Director rubbed his eyes and attempted to get up, "It’s not hurting anymore; I’m feeling fine now, what illness is there to treat."

Li Min pressed him down, "That’s the effect of the local blockade, once the medication wears off, you’ll be rolling on the ground again."

The Elderly Director thought about it and it seemed to make sense. On the way here, Little Li had administered a series of local blockade injections. Little Li was quite capable now, even managing to perform sciatic nerve blocks, while the Elderly Director himself could only perform simple superficial soft tissue blocks.

Since he had come, he might as well honestly get treated. It was rare for Little Li to show such filial piety by bringing him all the way to Sanbo Hospital.

To quickly clarify the diagnosis, with Yang Ping’s help, even though it was midnight, the Elderly Director completed an MRI scan. The lumbar spine MRI showed, although the Elderly Director also had disc protrusions at lumbar 4/5 and lumbar 5/sacral 1, it wasn’t severe enough to cause such intense pain.

In the lumbar spine MRI image, there was an abnormal signal in the anterior branch of the right lumbar 5 nerve root.

Previously, Li Min wouldn’t have understood the MRI images, but now, with the hands-on training from Yang Ping over this period, Li Min had mastered the basic reading knowledge for X-rays, CT, MRI, and surface ultrasounds. Seeing this abnormal signal, he immediately made a judgment: it was a nerve sheath tumor.

The severe right-side sciatic nerve pain in the lumbar spine wasn’t caused by a disc protrusion but was due to a nerve sheath tumor on the left lumbar 5 nerve root.

The sciatic nerve is composed of the anterior branches of the lumbar 4, lumbar 5, sacral 1, sacral 2, and sacral 3 nerve roots. It is the thickest nerve in the human body. Compression or irritation of any of these nerve roots can cause sciatic nerve pain.

Of course, the pathway of the sciatic nerve is long; starting from the spinal cord in the lumbar region, passing through the lower back, buttocks, back of the thigh, outer side of the calf, and all the way to the foot, controlling the skin sensation and muscle movement along the way.

Compression or irritation along its pathway can also cause pain or numbness in the extremities, such as at the exit of the piriformis muscle in the buttocks, where the sciatic nerve is easily pinched causing pain.

To differentiate, the Elderly Director had also completed an MRI of the piriformis muscle exit in the buttocks, and there was no pinching of the sciatic nerve at this location.

’A nerve sheath tumor on the lumbar 5 nerve root?’ asked Li Min.

Yang Ping nodded, "That’s why for lumbar pain patients, X-rays are unreliable. X-rays only show bones and have almost no ability to differentiate soft tissues. The final diagnosis still needs to rely on MRI, and from the imaging, a nerve sheath tumor is most likely, a benign one at that," Yang Ping pointed out on the MRI image.

"No wonder the pain was so pronounced; the straight leg raising test was actually negative."

Li Min couldn’t help but feel somewhat regretful. If he had administered a detailed checkup for the Elderly Director earlier, he wouldn’t have suffered for so many years, all these years treated only for a disc protrusion.

"You know what to do next, right? The Elderly Director’s illness is handed over to you, can you handle it?" Yang Ping asked Li Min.

Surgery was the only treatment method for this condition, and given Li Min’s current expertise, performing this surgery was not an issue.

This was a simple lumbar spine tumor surgery, and Li Min felt fully capable of performing it himself. Hearing Yang Ping say that he would handle this surgery made him very happy and gave him a great sense of accomplishment; he could actually be the Chief Surgeon for the Elderly Director.

It was a perfect way to report his learning progress to the Elderly Director, to show that his studies had been diligent and the Director’s support had not been in vain.

’For this surgery, you need patience. While protecting the spinal cord and nerve roots, you must completely resect the tumor,’ Yang Ping instructed Li Min.

"Yes, I will be very careful," Li Min was a little excited.

Since the test results had come out, Yang Ping took Li Min to explain the illness to the Elderly Director, who was lying in bed resting. A drip was hanging next to the bed, and perhaps because he hadn’t slept well for several days, the Elderly Director was sleeping soundly now.

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.