Friday morning in Binhai was a bit overcast, looking like it was about to rain.
Just after seven, Yan Feifan and Yu Suye, who was drinking soy milk and eating a savory crepe, happened to run into each other at the south gate of the Affiliated Hospital.
They looked at each other and asked in unison, "You didn't sleep well either?"
Both of their eyes were a little bloodshot.
Yan Feifan explained first, "My downstairs neighbor had a sudden senteric artery embolism last night, so I brought him to the hospital for an examination and surgery."
"I was up with him until one or two in the morning."
"What about you?"
Yu Suye replied, clearly frustrated, "Soone was having a party. You know how it is—the soundproofing in the apartnts isn't great. They were so loud I couldn't get to sleep until late."
She then asked with concern, "Feifan, this is an eight-hour surgery and you're the lead surgeon. Can you handle it?"
Yan Feifan said confidently, "No problem."
"For the estimated eight-hour surgery ti, I've already built in an hour of buffer."
"This surgery on Guo Fan can be paused at any ti."
"If the one-hour break at noon isn't enough, we can just pause the operation again around three or four in the afternoon and take another half-hour break..."
After Yan Feifan completed the preoperative examination on Guo Fan, the surgery began promptly at eight in the morning.
The operation was perford in Operating Room Six of the Trauma Surgery Departnt.
Yu Suye was the surgical assistant, while the anesthesiologist and nurses were all from the Trauma Surgery Departnt.
Because it was a full-body muscle trauma repair surgery and expected to be lengthy, Guo Fan was placed under general anesthesia.
Yan Feifan began by making an incision in the skin of Guo Fan's upper right arm.
He pulled back the incised skin, revealing the bright red, clearly defined muscle in his field of view.
He found that the actual situation was even more complex than what he had perceived through palpation.
The muscle fibers he saw were a ss: so had snapped in the middle and atrophied, while others were tangled and adhered together.
There were also muscle bundles that had torn directly from their tendons.
In the shoulder tendon area, Yan Feifan also discovered inflammation...
Next, Yan Feifan beca a muscle costologist.
He trimd away the severely atrophied muscle fibers, ticulously separated the tangled and adhered ones, and sutured the torn tendons.
He also cleaned up the inflammation...
All of this work required precise technique, as well as imnse care and patience.
For Yan Feifan, who had been trapped in a world of consciousness for an unknown number of years, technique, care, and patience were things he had in abundance...
Yan Feifan spent the entire morning performing this seemingly simple and repetitive work...
As the surgical assistant, Yu Suye actually didn't have much to do during this operation.
Her main job was to use surgical forceps to hold open the incised skin, giving Yan Feifan enough room to work.
Because there was so little bleeding from the skin, she didn't even have to use the suction tool, the most common instrunt for a surgical assistant, a single ti.
As for suturing, to minimize scarring, Yan Feifan handled it all himself using an intradermal suture technique.
Feeling a bit bored and trying not to fall asleep, Yu Suye focused her attention on Yan Feifan.
Yu Suye watched Yan Feifan, who was completely absorbed in his work.
She had to admit, she was thoroughly impressed by the man before her.
He was the one who had made the proud and arrogant Yu Suye understand for the first ti that there was always soone better, a higher mountain to climb.
Through their subsequent interactions, Yu Suye had co to feel that Yan Feifan was so far ahead of her that they weren't even in the sa league.
There was the cleft lip repair surgery that truly showcased his skills, and also the thumb replantation surgery he had taken over under unexpected circumstances.
When Yu Suye replayed the events in her head, putting herself in Yan Feifan's shoes, she realized she truly could not have done what he did.
Especially with the thumb replantation surgery; Yu Suye wouldn't have had the courage to boast to Chen Yu that she could handle it.
She didn't have that confidence in herself...
As for the operation at hand.
Yu Suye understood that while it looked simple, the very first step—locating the injuries purely through palpation—was sothing very few people could do.
This kind of minor muscle damage, apart from the patient noticing it through soreness and other sensations, was undetectable by dical instrunts.
If the patient couldn't feel it themselves, then there was no way to know.
Yan Feifan had already made nearly forty incisions on Guo Fan's body, and Yu Suye hadn't seen a single one miss its mark.
There are three things a surgeon dreads most: making an empty incision, a patient dying on the operating table, and leaving a foreign object behind.
An 'empty incision' refers to a situation where a problem or tumor diagnosed preoperatively requires surgery, but upon opening the patient, nothing is found.
Thanks to detailed and ticulous preoperative investigations, as well as the widespread use of diagnostic tools like imaging tests, lab work, and various minimally invasive endoscopic examinations, 'empty incisions' have beco rare.
But for Yan Feifan to have located all these injuries with just his two hands, without a single incision being misplaced, left Yu Suye no choice but to be impressed.
'Just how detailed must his understanding of human musculature be, and how sensitive must his hands be, to reach such a level?'
Yu Suye admitted to herself that she could never reach that level.
She also noticed sothing else.
The surgery had been going on for three and a half hours, and Yu Suye could see the fatigue in Yan Feifan's eyes.
But the movents of his hands hadn't changed at all; they were just as precise and ticulous as they were when the surgery began.
That level of control was sothing Yu Suye was confident she could also achieve, but she couldn't match the degree of ticulousness in his work...
The more she observed, the more Yu Suye realized that the gap between her and Yan Feifan was all-encompassing. It seed there wasn't a single area where she held an advantage.
This made her feel a little discouraged...
"What ti is it?"
The sudden voice snapped Yu Suye out of her daze, and she quickly glanced at the clock on the wall.
"Eleven forty-two!"
"Alright, Side A is done. Intermission. At one this afternoon, we'll start on Side B."
A ripple of soft laughter spread through the operating room at Yan Feifan's words.
Yu Suye volunteered to stay in the operating room to watch over Guo Fan just in case, while Yan Feifan and the others left to get so lunch.
As the lead surgeon, Yan Feifan made sure to inform Guo Fan's parents and girlfriend that the surgery had been going smoothly so far.
On his way to the employee cafeteria, Yan Feifan received an unexpected call from Lo Jun.
"Xiaoyan, Mr. Pan suddenly found himself unable to get up after sitting down this morning."
"We just got the MRI scans back, and the results aren't good!"
Yan Feifan asked in a somber voice, "Mr. Lo, how much ti does he have?"
"Three days, at most. After that, it's hard to say."
Yan Feifan decided imdiately. "Then we'll do the surgery on the third day."
"Mr. Lo, Ms. Liu's surgery is scheduled for tomorrow. I'll go perform the tumor biopsy and take a sample this evening."
A heavy breath ca through the phone, followed by Lo Jun's voice again. "Xiaoyan, are you confident?"
Yan Feifan said after a mont of thought, "Mr. Lo, I can only say that I have a certain degree of confidence..."
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