Special Forces Medic

Chapter 1081 - 1052: Intracardiac Foreign Body (3)

"If it’s not a tumor, then what could it be?" Xiao Lin tossed the valve knife and clamp into the metal tray beside him as the lead surgeon instructed a nurse to go out and consult Meisai, and immediately inserted his right hand into the patient’s chest cavity.

His right hand reached in, feeling around the beating heart. Although the lead surgeon watched Xiao Lin’s actions without a word of protest, inside he was extremely unwilling because the person who discovered the foreign object was this young man in front of him.

And whether this foreign object was a tumor is still unknown. If he abruptly stopped him now, how would the surgery proceed? Judging by this person’s attitude towards him just now, he would surely make things difficult, so he wisely chose to let it be, as long as he didn’t move the knife arbitrarily, allowing the exploration wouldn’t hurt.

"This is the cause of the exaggerated symptoms."

"But how could there be gauze in the patient’s pericardium?" The lead surgeon reached out for the tweezers from the Instrument Master, slowly poking at the protrusion.

"Earlier when I separated the pericardium, I found stitching marks on the pericardium, not very obvious but still noticeable." Xiao Lin coldly replied to the lead surgeon’s question.

Suddenly, the phone in the operating room rang. The nurse responsible for recording walked over, listened quietly, then hung up the phone. "This patient has previously undergone mitral valve replacement surgery."

The lead surgeon sighed. The situation was now evident—this was a residual complication caused by medical error. However, it was surprising that after two years, it had adhered to this extent; it seemed unusually fast.

"Prepare for gauze removal surgery!" Xiao Lin, feeling no sense of being an assistant, had already issued the next surgery order to those around him.

"Young man, do you know what the situation is now? The gauze has been left in the pericardium for two years, plus during the mitral valve replacement surgery, the lead surgeon at the time must have placed gauze on the heart’s surface to stop the bleeding. If that’s the case, the gauze may have adhered to the heart, effectively becoming a part of it. Removing the gauze isn’t as easy as just saying it."

"If that’s the case, do we not do it?" Xiao Lin coldly retorted. "If this is what you think, you can step aside. Instrument Master, prepare warmed saline solution, we’ll perform wash and removal soon. Anesthetist, prepare anesthesia." Xiao Lin completely disregarded the lead surgeon’s dignity, and had begun issuing orders to the medical staff. "I want you to return the patient’s data to me as quickly as possible during gauze removal."

"No problem."

Time passed slowly. Xiao Lin continued washing while carefully trying to scrub away the remaining bloodstains, revealing the true condition. He carefully separated the gauze adhered to the heart. Ultimately, after saline washing, he had only managed to manually separate less than one-third of the adhered area. However, the scabbed blood where the gauze adhered to the heart was completely washed away, providing an optimal view for the gauze removal surgery.

"Let me take over!" The lead surgeon suddenly spoke, his voice carrying into Xiao Lin’s ear, seeming steadfast and uncompromising. "I am the lead surgeon. I will perform the final removal."

"Can you?" Xiao Lin emotionlessly asked. If this surgery succeeds, it will be legendary, and this man’s true intentions were quite obvious. "This person cannot die, can you do it?"

Shaken by Xiao Lin’s cold demeanor, the lead surgeon nodded. "Gauze removal surgery begins now—clamp, valve knife!" The Instrument Master handed the instruments to the lead surgeon, who was preparing for the removal. Now Xiao Lin focused on continuing to suction away the physiological saline and blood mixture accumulating in the patient’s chest cavity.

Upon taking the instruments, the lead surgeon immediately gripped the tweezers with his left hand to pull the gauze while using the valve knife in his right hand to carefully start separating the gauze adhered to the heart, without any hesitation. Thus he began the direct removal.

For a moment, the operating room was silent, with not a sound made, fearing disturbances to the lead surgeon meticulously removing the adhesion. He gazed intently at the area where the heart and gauze adhered together, meticulously peeling away as if nothing else existed.

Xiao Lin kept his head down, silently suctioning the accumulated liquid in the patient’s chest cavity. Since the bottom of the gauze was still immersed in the liquid, he needed to quickly help the lead surgeon secure the surgical field. Meanwhile, all medical personnel focused on the lead surgeon, knowing well the difficulty of this removal surgery. Any slight angle deviation of the surgical knife could damage the heart, potentially causing cardiac bleeding and resulting in patient death.

Xiao Lin observed the gauze at the heart’s base, noticing it was somewhat circular, contemplating the possibility of the gauze slipping to the bottom due to heart contraction compressing the pericardium? Eventually, under the pressure from the pericardium and heart, it gradually took on this shape?

In a moment of contemplation, the lead surgeon hesitated in cutting, refraining from continuing the removal. He extended both hands into the patient’s chest cavity, gently cradling the heart with his left hand, cautiously handling the circularly adhered gauze at the heart’s base. The adhesion was substantially extensive.

Observing the lead surgeon controlling the heart’s rhythmic movement, following the myocardial shifts to remove the gauze, Xiao Lin couldn’t help but admire this lead surgeon’s skill. Just then, while removing the last piece of gauze adhered to the left ventricle, he seemingly noticed something.

The heart valve knife paused in his right hand, and when the lead surgeon withdrew the valve knife backwards, it was already too late—the heart’s contractions followed the myocardial shifts, dragging the heart valve knife, deeply slicing into the patient’s heart below the left ventricle. A spurt of blood emanated from the patient’s left ventricle, splashing onto the lead surgeon and Xiao Lin’s sterile gowns with a crimson stain. (To be continued. If you like this work, feel free to visit Qidian (qidian.com) to vote for recommendations and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation.)