Rebirth of a Doctor Without Regrets

Chapter 103 Catastrophic Complications

The system has not yet indicated that the surgery has failed, and Wang Xiao has no other choice but to grit his teeth and attempt a temporary fix.

"Sister Wei, could you please take a sturdy, thin slice of pericardium with neat edges and no burrs?"

Li Wei didn't dare to delay. She quickly retrieved the spare pericardial tissue, precisely cut out thin slices that met the requirements, and handed them to Wang Xiao.

Wang Xiao took the pericardial patch, attached it to the outside of the artificial valve opening, and sutured it tightly with fine needles and thread, circle by circle.

This step is extremely difficult. It requires ensuring that the pericardial patch fits tightly to the existing valve orifice without any wrinkles, while also controlling the pressure of the stitches to avoid puncturing the pericardial tissue and causing new leakage.

Standing in the corner, Li Lei's brows furrowed deeper and deeper, and his doubts grew stronger.

Looking at the tense expressions on everyone's faces, he shook his head inwardly. Wang Xiao was indeed too young; his skills were simply not mature enough.

Originally, it was thought that Wang Xiao could save time with that innovative technique, but it still took nearly two hours to reconstruct the valve.

Including the previous procedures, the surgery time has far exceeded expectations, which is completely contrary to the plan to shorten the surgery time.

What worried him even more was that this temporary repair valve itself had hidden dangers.

Artificial valves have a smaller outer diameter and are temporarily thickened with pericardial patches. However, the fit is not as precise as that of native valves, and problems such as leakage and detachment are likely to occur later.

Li Lei couldn't help but mutter to himself, "Deputy Director Shen is too risky. He actually entrusted his own grandfather's surgery to an unreliable resident doctor. How is he going to clean up this mess?"

He grew increasingly anxious, his palms sweating profusely, yet he dared not approach and speak further, only silently staring at Shuye, praying for a miracle to occur.

Twenty minutes later, Wang Xiao finally completed the thickened suture of the pericardial patch, inserted the thickened artificial valve into the heart, and sutured it in place of the original valve opening stitch by stitch.

Zhu Chunhua kept a close eye on Wang Xiao, constantly reminding him to pay attention to the condition of the annulus valve to prevent tearing.

Another half hour passed, the suturing was completely completed, the water injection test was passed, and the surgical field was cleaned.

Looking at the slightly swollen heart, Wang Xiao gave the order: "Disconnect from extracorporeal circulation."

The hum of the extracorporeal circulation machine gradually subsided, blood flowed back to the heart, and the operating room instantly fell silent.

Everyone's eyes were fixed on the heart in the surgical field, and no one dared to breathe.

One second, two seconds, three seconds — the heart, which had stopped beating, slowly began to beat again.

Then, the heartbeat became clearer and more stable, and the heart rate curve on the monitor gradually became regular. The systolic and diastolic blood pressure also slowly returned to the normal range.

"I did it again! I succeeded! I actually succeeded!" Li Wei's tense nerves finally relaxed, and she couldn't help but cheer softly, a smile of relief spreading across her face.

Xue Jia wiped the sweat from Wang Xiao's forehead with gauze. Just as a smile was about to appear on Wang Xiao's lips, the sharp alarm of the ventilator suddenly sounded in the operating room.

The smiles on everyone's faces froze instantly, and their eyes all turned to the monitor.

The previously stable systolic blood pressure was dropping rapidly at a visible rate, and the heart rate became rapid and irregular.

Even more alarming, a large amount of pink, frothy sputum suddenly gushed out of the patient's endotracheal tube, slowly dripping down the tube.

Blood oxygen saturation also continued to decline, dropping from 95% to 80%.

"Oh no!" Zhu Chunhua's expression changed drastically. She leaned down and approached the surgical field to carefully observe the condition of the heart.

The right atrium on the surface of the heart was visibly swelling and turning dark red.

"It's low cardiac output syndrome, and also acute pulmonary edema! There's still a problem with valve apposition; the valve elasticity is insufficient, and the tricuspid valve cannot open properly, leading to excessive load on the right heart and blood pooling!"

Wang Xiao's face turned deathly pale instantly. He reached out and touched the swollen right atrium on the surface of his heart, and could clearly feel the abnormal tension under his fingertips.

"Don't just stand there!" Zhu Chunhua's voice pulled Wang Xiao back to reality. Her tone became stern. "We must immediately re-block the aorta, reopen the heart, widen the valves, and reduce the load on the right ventricle. Otherwise, the patient won't last long!"

Wang Xiao immediately took action, preparing to re-establish extracorporeal circulation.

Li Lei stood to the side, his face pale. The ominous premonition in his heart had finally come true.

Oh no, how am I going to explain this to Shen Hao now?

This not only ruins the patient's future, but also their own.

Before Wang Xiao could even react, the system's cold notification sound suddenly rang in his mind.

【Ding! 】

[A catastrophic complication occurred, and the surgery failed.]

Go back in time! Even Wang Xiao herself feels ashamed of how the surgery turned out this way.

[Start the time rewind module.]

[Current number of surgeries completed: 699]

Total backtracking attempts: 666

The familiar dizziness struck instantly, seemingly more intense than ever before.

When Wang Xiao suddenly opened her eyes again, the scene before her eyes returned to what it was like before her chest was opened.

The old man lay quietly on the operating table, and all vital signs on the monitor were stable.

"What's wrong?" Zhu Chunhua, who had been with Wang Xiao day and night, immediately noticed his unusual behavior.

Wang Xiao did not rush to pick up the scalpel. Instead, she took a deep breath, forced herself to calm down, and reviewed every mistake from the last surgery.

He looked at Xue Jia beside him: "Please get a precision caliper, and also a pair of size 23 and a pair of size 26 artificial valve rings."

"Calibers?" Xue Jia asked in confusion. These were not standard surgical instruments, and Wang Xiao hadn't mentioned them before the surgery; they weren't even prepared on the instrument table.

The nurse in the audience reacted quickly, saying, "I'll go get it."

She then quickly jogged out of the operating room.

Li Lei quickly stepped forward to remind him: "Dr. Wang, the artificial valve implanted in the patient's first surgery was size 22, and the internal diameter of his valve orifice should correspond to size 22."

"Brother Lei, don't rush." ​​Wang Xiao spoke slowly, his tone carrying the authority of the chief surgeon.

"In the last surgery, we used the outer diameter of the artificial valve ring as a mold, which made suturing extremely difficult. Even Deputy Director Shen had a hard time managing it. This time, we tried using the artificial valve ring to hold it in place before suturing. This made it less likely for the pericardial flap to slip, and the procedure should be much simpler."

Two pairs of artificial valve rings and calipers were brought out. Wang Xiao placed the No. 22 valve ring in the middle of the No. 26 valve ring and measured the gap between them.

The width is exactly the appropriate cross-sectional width of the artificial valve.

"That's not right either. Even if you use a size 23 outer diameter and a size 26 inner diameter to clamp it, the resulting opening will still be suitable for a size 23 artificial flap, but it's still not right," Li Lei questioned again.

The root cause of the previous mistake was the failure to accurately measure the size of the flap after resection.

Wang Xiao made a gesture, and Xue Jia pushed the ultrasound machine next to the bed over.

The anesthesiologist came over and helped Wang Xiao insert the ultrasound probe into his esophagus. Wang Xiao pointed to the ultrasound image and said to Li Lei, "Brother Lei, look."

Li Lei looked completely bewildered. "Look, what are you looking at?"

Wang Xiao drew a circle on the screen with his index finger, which was not very clear. "Look here, the degree of calcification is very serious. So if I want to completely remove the calcification in a while, the depth of the excision flap will exceed that of the conventional procedure, and naturally the flap will be larger."

Li Lei was still completely bewildered.

Are our cardiac surgery residents better at interpreting ultrasounds than I am?