Surgery Godfather
Chapter 1310 - 993: Tumor Department Consultation_2

Chapter 1310: Chapter 993: Tumor Department Consultation_2

It’s inappropriate to have a cup of water next to you while reviewing a medical case; it’s against the rules. So, without needing Yang Ping to say anything, someone had already helped to move the cup of water away.

Yang Ping was examining the case, and indeed, this patient was a difficult one. The patient’s name was Fu Xiaotao, quite young at just twenty-four years old. He was a student at Jiaotong University in Shanghai and had recently been admitted as a graduate student in his school. Unexpectedly, he was found to have this illness.

He had been suffering from recurrent abdominal pain and had noticeably lost weight; he had general edema and lymph node enlargement for 8 months when he was admitted to the hospital. Initially, upon admission, he was alternating between comatose and lucid states. After treatment, he regained consciousness and had been in the hospital for two weeks, four of which were spent in the ICU. During his hospitalization, he had undergone repeated abdominal paracentesis and approximately 40 kilograms of ascites had been removed.

From the test reports, at the time of admission, his liver, kidneys, and so on had already encountered severe dysfunction, and his immune function was severely disturbed. CT scans showed enlarged lymph nodes throughout his body, but no obvious primary tumor lesions were found in the liver or lungs.

After a considerable amount of hormone therapy, his condition had started to improve, and there was a positive trend in his liver and kidney function indicators.

Fu Xiaotao was from Nandu Province. Since he was studying in Shanghai, he had consulted in various hospitals across the city. Different hospitals had different considerations for his diagnosis: some thought of lymphoma, others systemic lupus erythematosus, some considered monocyte hyperactivity disorder, others suspected metastasis from an undetected malignant tumor to the lymph nodes, and some believed it to be a rare, unnamed autoimmune rheumatic disease.

Those making these diagnoses were experts, and each of them had their reasons, yet the reasons were not sufficient, so none of these diagnoses became conclusive. In terms of treatment, there was no effective method. Every time he fell ill, he was treated with large doses of corticosteroids.

Given Fu Xiaotao’s current state, continuing his studies was out of the question. His family, unable to clarify his condition in Shanghai, felt compelled and helpless to bring the patient back home and look for other solutions.

When Fu Xiaotao went off to study, he was in good health and was a sports champion at school, a main player on the school’s soccer team, and even won the 5000-meter race at the school sports meeting. Now, his limbs had become as thin as twigs, and his feet were swollen like steamed buns, showing no trace of a sports champion.

After bringing Fu Xiaotao home, his parents didn’t know what to do. They could only let him rest at home and send him to the hospital for hormone treatment whenever his condition worsened. Beyond that, there was nothing they could do.

But Fu Xiaotao himself was not disheartened. He searched for information online, not just casually browsing, but accessing some professional journal websites with his academic knowledge to look up treatments for his disease. Although he came up with nothing, he did learn some information: Sanbo Hospital was quite prominent, especially for difficult cases like his, so he came to Sanbo Hospital for treatment.

"Let’s see the patient!"

Yang Ping suggested, which is a basic step in the consultation process. Of course, there are those doctors who are in a hurry and don’t see the patient during the consultation, writing the consultation form based solely on the patient’s records. However, most doctors wouldn’t do such a foolish thing, as the basic principle of clinical physicians is to interact with patients.

The atmosphere in the oncology ward is generally quite somber. You can see patients everywhere wearing hats or wrapped up tightly, as chemotherapy and radiation have taken their hair. Some beauty-conscious patients, especially women, like to cover up their lost hair with hats. The treatments also damage their immune systems, so they are even more afraid of catching some bacterial viruses or being affected by cold.

All the windows and balconies in the oncology ward are locked, making the entire space enclosed and adding to the oppressive atmosphere. The reason the doors and windows are locked isn’t that the hospital doesn’t want to give patients the freedom to go out and breathe fresh air. Oncology is special in that patients might suddenly decide to jump from a window, so to avoid trouble, many hospitals simply lock the doors and windows or open them regularly under supervision.

Yang Ping arrived at the ward, where Fu Xiaotao lay curled up on the bed, his limbs as dry as kindling and his abdomen bulging, resembling a six-month pregnant woman. It was said that when he first arrived, he looked like he was eight months into pregnancy. His feet were swollen like steamed buns, and his thin skin now showed wrinkles, indicating that the swelling had been even worse before and that he was currently in a phase of subsiding.

Sitting beside him were the worried parents of Fu Xiaotao, who had struggled to send their child to a 985 university, and he had even been admitted as a graduate student—a classic success story of an overachieving family. But now, faced with their son’s condition, they felt both heartache and discomfort, as if their dreams had shattered.

They might have grown accustomed to the comings and goings of medical consultations at many hospitals, and thus, when Yang Ping and the doctor entered, Fu Xiaotao’s parents showed no particular reaction.

"This is our Professor Yang!" Director Jiang introduced him personally, as if having another doctor do so would seem insufficient or impolite.

Upon hearing the name Professor Yang, the patient’s parents immediately stood up, squeezing a smile onto their worried faces, "Professor Yang, hello." They finally met the legendary Professor Yang.

The spread of a doctor’s reputation depends on two things—word of mouth and academic papers. Among the general public, reputation spreads through word of mouth, but in the medical field, it spreads through academic papers. Of course, making appearances at academic conferences and giving lectures is also a way to become famous in the medical world. The more one appears, and the earlier in the sequence, the more likely they are to be remembered by peers. But, at the end of the day, it’s still about the papers, because without excellent papers, doctors wouldn’t get the chance to teach on stage; they could only be there as a faithful listener.

Hearing the name Professor Yang, Fu Xiaotao, as if stimulated, immediately turned over and sat up, presenting his true face to Professor Yang. Before Professor Yang was introduced, the patient had been lying on his side, curled up with his back to them, silent; he too had become accustomed to the constant flow of doctors, and each visit ended with the same conclusion, "Unable to diagnose, can only treat symptomatically with corticosteroids."

It seemed that this time would yield the same result, but upon hearing the name Professor Yang, Fu Xiaotao’s hopes appeared to reignite. He respectfully greeted Yang Ping, "Professor Yang!"

This time was no different, and the patient’s intermittent comas were terminated by a large dosage of corticosteroids, which allowed him to regain consciousness. Corticosteroids are a powerful all-purpose weapon in medicine, a final move by doctors when all else fails.

Although the medical history was very detailed in the case file, Yang Ping preferred to ask about the medical history himself. Despite the consistency of the reports, the history elicited by different doctors varied, and that was certain.

Yang Ping also was accustomed to conducting his own physical examination. While the patient’s signs and symptoms remained the same, the ability to discern and quantify them was directly related to the physician’s expertise.

"Frequent nocturnal awakenings from sleep, waking up drenched in sweat, clothes completely soaked, repetitive abdominal pain, fatigue, all the lymph nodes in the body inexplicably swelling, strange red swellings appearing on the skin—" The patient was very familiar with his condition, able to list a multitude of symptoms without a second thought.

It had been a full eight months since Fu Xiaotao first fell ill. When he initially complained to his parents about feeling unwell, they thought it was due to the stress of his graduate entrance exams and did not take it seriously, insisting on motivating him instead. It wasn’t until the symptoms progressively worsened and became unbearable that Fu Xiaotao sought medical help on his own. Over these eight months, he had been intermittently seeking medical care, but each time, he couldn’t find a definitive answer, relying instead on high doses of steroids to alleviate the symptoms.

After such repeated experiences, Fu Xiaotao slowly lost faith in hospitals and doctors. Each visit would only provide temporary relief. He never expected to get a clear diagnosis, let alone a cure. Many diseases are incurable; such is reality.

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