Chapter 93 transplant

Cardiac surgery ushered in, patients were hospitalized continuously, and cured patients were discharged one after another. So is life, full of reunions and separations.

On the third day after Deng Sang’s wedding, the general practitioners held a banquet again, but this time it was a farewell banquet—Zeng Yuan finished his studies and was going back to work in his original unit.

Before organizing this dinner, everyone hesitated to call Xu Mai and Min Yue. After all, Zeng Yuan had pursued Xu Mai and was afraid that the three of them would be embarrassed. In the end, Zeng Yuan took the initiative to invite the two of them as colleagues.

At the last round of toasting, Zeng Yuan walked up to them, showing a little lonely, raised his glass and smiled, “I wish you happiness.”

Xu Mai responded politely: “I wish you a bright future.”

The love of adults can be afforded and let go, gentle and restrained when loving, and graceful when leaving.

Three cups of wine poured into my throat, everything in the past was wiped out, leaving only the purest blessings in my heart.

At the morning meeting of the shift handover the next day, the doctor on the night shift looked exhausted, with a rich blue color under his eyelids. Looking at their state, everyone knew that last night was not peaceful.

Sure enough, they said solemnly: “The little **** the third bed in the intensive care unit had short episodes of ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation last night. She was rescued several times, and she didn’t dare to leave at all. She stayed by the bed until dawn. If it is transplanted, it is hard to say whether it can survive.”

Min Yue remembers very clearly that the girl in SICU 3 was only 26 years old, about her age, had just been married for two years, but had been hospitalized for a year and a half.

Before Min Yue entered the First Affiliated Hospital, she had already been admitted to the SICU. Sometimes her condition improved and she was transferred to the general ward, and it would not be long before she would deteriorate and be transferred back.

She suffers from hypoplastic left ventricle syndrome (HLHS), which is a very serious congenital heart disease. After birth, she must use drugs to control blood pressure and enhance myocardial function.

At about two weeks old, she will undergo the first-stage Norwood operation, which connects the right ventricle to the pulmonary artery, allowing the right ventricle to replace the function of the left ventricle and supply blood to the whole body.

When it is four to six months old, a second-stage Glenn operation will be performed to connect the pulmonary artery to the superior vena cava.

From one and a half to three years old, another Fontan operation was performed to establish the connection between the pulmonary artery and the inferior vena cava.

Complicated congenital heart surgery to change one’s life against the sky is extremely difficult, and it is a field close to the gods. There are very few surgeons in the country who can perform this kind of surgery. Even if it goes very well and the three phases are successful, it only prolongs life and cannot be cured. In the end, we still have to wait for a heart transplant.

This is the only treatment, but there are very few donors, and there are many end-stage heart disease patients waiting for life-saving.

The hospital had submitted the application a year ago, and after that there was an unknown long queue, waiting for a suitable heart source.

It’s just… this kind of waiting is long and hopeless, and most people have not waited for the last chance.

As her condition deteriorated rapidly, the time left for her dwindled, and her hope faded.

Her husband is the same age as her, and they are high school classmates. They have been in love for many years and have cultivated a fruitful relationship. Before the sweet words are enough, they have to face life and death.

Min Yue saw that young husband more than once, squatting in the corridor alone and crying loudly after visiting the doctor. Her mother-in-law and biological parents would tearfully pray over and over again during the ward rounds to save their daughter, she was still so young.

It’s really too young, in my twenties, there are still a lot of dreams that have not been realized, there is still a vast world that I haven’t seen, and there are still lovers, parents, and I don’t love enough.

Seeing her weak and helpless on the hospital bed, Min Yue would always think of herself after the occupational exposure, how desperate and regretful she was at that time, her mood must be many times worse than herself at that time.

Wanting to help as much as possible, Min Yue actively learned a lot about heart transplantation. When Xu Mai’s paper on heart transplant rejection was published in the journal “NATURE”, she read it immediately.

But after reading it, I didn’t feel any more relaxed. After receiving the transplant operation, the recipient needs to take immunosuppressants for life, and regularly go to the hospital to check the heart function and rejection. In addition, due to the side effects of immunosuppressive drugs, the recipient is prone to renal insufficiency and even tumors.

After the transplant operation, can the patients really gain a new life, can they really enjoy life like ordinary people? Min Yue had a question mark in her heart, and was going to ask Xu Mai at night.

No one expected that the **** of luck would take care of this young girl when she was at the end of her life.

After four o’clock in the afternoon, when the blood sugar concentration dropped and people felt tired, Min Yue’s hands hurt from writing the medical records, so she flicked her wrists, stood up and stretched a long way.

In the middle of yawning, Director Zheng pushed the door open like a gust of wind and came in, hung up the phone, with a serious expression, and said quickly: “The donor has been found!”

All the doctors in the duty room stood up abruptly, but Min Yue forgot to close her open mouth and froze in shock.

“There was a brain-dead patient in the People’s Hospital of T City just now, and the system automatically assigned the heart to the girl in the third bed. The heart was taken out five minutes ago, and their people took the latest flight, and it will be delivered in three and a half hours.”

OPO (Organization for Organ Procurement) is responsible for entering organ information into COTRS (Human Organ Distribution and Sharing System), and the system automatically matches recipients according to the length of the queue and the severity of the disease.

After screening, and after a year of waiting, she was finally assigned a heart.

Director Zheng arranged the follow-up work in an orderly manner: “Xiao Deng, go get the family members to sign. Hu Yidao, drive to the airport to pick you up. Xu Mai, get ready to enter the operating room.”

Director Zheng dialed the number while talking, and immediately reported to the dean after the call was connected.

After the heart is removed from the donor, it is placed in a freezer transport box for cold storage. Compared with the liver and lung, the heart can tolerate cold ischemia for a shorter time, with an upper limit of only 6 to 8 hours. The longer the ischemia time, the greater the damage to the organ, which directly affects the transplantation effect of the recipient, that is, the survival rate.

Excluding the time spent on transplantation, there is not much time left for organ transfer. For long-distance transfer across provinces and cities, the time is even tighter, and it can be said that every second counts.

Hu Yidao and another deputy chief physician drove to the airport in a private car. Nearly four hours later, a call came: “Got it, let’s go back now!”

Director Zheng, Director Li, and the dean all sat in front of the computer to watch the live broadcast of the operation and keep abreast of the progress. Director Zheng answered the phone, turned on the two-way intercom microphone, and told the news to the people in the operating room to get them ready.

From the First Affiliated Hospital to the airport, it takes about an hour without traffic jams. The seamless relay, the time is just right.

However, 20 minutes later, Hu Yidao called again and reported the bad news: “Director, there was a car accident on the way back. Our car was blocked and we couldn’t move at all.”

“Contact the traffic police! Tell them we have transplanted organs in the car, and we can’t wait!” Director Zheng raised his voice anxiously, and the director keenly noticed the abnormality, and motioned him to open the car.

In the quiet environment, Hu Yidao’s voice was amplified by the loudspeaker, and he became more anxious: “The traffic police have arrived, and they are rushing to get off work, and they are repairing roads and single lanes. half an hour.”

That is to say, it will take at least one and a half hours before the heart can be delivered.

Director Zheng asked through the walkie-talkie: “How is the patient’s condition? Can he last for an hour and a half?”

Xu Mai looked at the camera with cold eyes, and rarely gave a negative answer: “I can’t hold it.”

There was silence.

We all know how severe the patient’s heart failure is, frequent arrhythmias after general anesthesia, and may die on the operating table at any time.

Min Yue clenched her fists and stared straight at the screen on the monitor. The girl was lying quietly on the operating table, her chest had been opened, and she was only one step away from replacing her with a healthy heart and starting a new life.

He had already arrived in the same city, but his heart couldn’t get through the last 90 kilometers. Waiting for more than a year, can it only fall short?

Everyone frowned, feeling too depressed to speak.

Suddenly, the dean picked up Director Zheng’s mobile phone and asked loudly, “Can you park a helicopter near you?”

Hu Yidao paused, and quickly replied: “There is a commercial plaza by the side of the road. There is quite a lot of space in front of the gate, so it should be possible to park.”

“Okay.” The dean said: “Now send a helicopter to pick you up.”

Hu Yidao was taken aback for a moment, and after understanding what it meant, he replied excitedly: “Got it!”

If the patient does not purchase special commercial insurance, the cost of a medical helicopter will be quite expensive, starting in the tens of thousands. Since the family members were not consulted, they were likely to refuse to pay the large sum of money after the operation, and the hospital had to pay in advance, resulting in losses.

The vice president reminded: “This fee…”

The dean interrupted him directly: “I’ll talk about it later, we joined the Air Alliance to save more people, don’t put the cart before the horse.”

The vice president was silent for a moment, then took out his mobile phone to make arrangements.

It takes only 20 minutes for the helicopter to fly back and forth in an hour and a half by car, and every minute saved is a little more hope of resuscitating the patient.

Xu Mai suddenly looked at the monitor and said, “Min Yue, go to the roof to pick up the heart.”

Across the monitor, looking at each other, Xu Mai’s eyes were calm and calm, as in every operation before, clearly giving instructions to her assistant, her apprentice, and her lover.

Min Yue nodded vigorously, turned around and walked out quickly. Exit the surgery building, walk through the garden, walk into the outpatient hall, and take the elevator to the top floor.

The night was dark, shrouded in the sky above the city, and in the thick night, only a few ground lights were lit around the apron.

The night was terribly quiet, and the time was stretched infinitely. From one second to the next, it was as long as a human life, from birth to death.

Standing under the shadowless lamp, Xu Mai turned his head to look at the central control panel.

One second, two seconds, three seconds. The surgery clock was ticking literally.

Hurry up, she thought secretly, Min Yue, come back quickly.

On the edge of the empty tarmac, Min Yue kept looking down at the time and looking up at the sky in the distance.

Hurry up, hurry up, she stomped anxiously, Master is waiting for me to go back.

After looking at it countless times, Min Yue’s eyes lit up. Two beams of white light appeared in the distant sky, getting closer and brighter.

The rumbling noise of the propellers gradually increased, as if to wake up the sleeping night sky, telling the dark clouds blocking the way to get out of the way quickly, and give way to the passage of life.

Min Yue stared fixedly at that direction, the helicopter quickly approached, the white fuselage reflected the light of the searchlight, in the deep night, it was as bright as a morning star, illuminating the heart, bringing hope of life.

Min Yue squinted her eyes in the strong wind and strong light, remembering what Xu Mai told her a long time ago——

When you feel tired, go see a medical helicopter.

Every landing means that a life is saved.

Looking at it, you will feel that your work is meaningful and all your efforts are worthwhile.

The author has something to say: A friendly reminder from Mr. Progress: It has entered the penultimate event.