Healing Doctor

Chapter 497 Communication between Patients

"It terrified me at the time," Ji Xiang said in a gentle, joking tone as he pushed the wheelchair. "We doctors often make funny mistakes too. For example, one of my mentors got up one morning to defecate, and when he looked at the toilet afterward, it was all red."

The patients and their families listened attentively to Ji Xiang's "storytelling".

"My teacher was terrified. He didn't even do the morning handover. He said he was just thinking about how he hadn't eaten dragon fruit recently, so he went to the endoscopy room early in the morning to get some medicine and prepare for the endoscopy."

"Dragon fruit? Why?" the patient's family member asked.

"Dragon fruit is rich in anthocyanins, dietary fiber, and minerals. The juice inside red dragon fruit is red, so it's normal for your stool to turn red after consuming a lot of dragon fruit."

"Is that so!"

"Yes, so my teacher immediately recalled that she hadn't eaten dragon fruit, which made her even more scared. She couldn't have a colonoscopy immediately and had to schedule it for the next day..."

"Why can't I do it?" the patient asked softly, enduring the pain.

"You need to prepare your bowels before you have a colonoscopy, otherwise they'll be full of stool and you won't be able to see anything," Ji Xiang explained patiently.

"And then what?" the patient and his family asked in unison.

Because it involves rectal bleeding, both the patient and their family are very concerned and eager to ask more questions.

"The teacher was worried and had other concerns, so she took him to the proctology department, where he was diagnosed with internal hemorrhoids."

"..."

"..."

The patient and his family breathed a sigh of relief.

"But my teacher was still worried, so the next day she had a colonoscopy to make sure everything was fine, and then she took leave to have surgery for internal hemorrhoids."

Ji Xiang said with a smile.

"However, my situation was rather bad at the time."

"What's wrong? There's a lot of bleeding?"

"No, I had black stools. I didn't notice it at first, but later I realized there was a problem, so I took a routine stool sample and sent it for testing. You don't know how anxious I was at the time, afraid that I might have some other disease."

You know about other illnesses, right?

The patient certainly knew what this feeling was like. Every word Ji Xiang said was like a bullet, hitting the bullseye and delivering a critical hit.

"My stool test came back positive, so I went to my teacher to prepare for a colonoscopy. But instead, my teacher told me to have a gastroscopy instead."

"Uh... Dr. Ji, I remember you mentioned upper gastrointestinal bleeding." The patient's family member was very puzzled, and he frowned as he recalled.

Although Ji Xiang explained it once, he wasn't a professional, so he couldn't understand it thoroughly in a short time.

The patient's family thought there was something wrong with their understanding.

"It's different. I had a gastroscopy. I used to think that having a gastroscopy was a lot of suffering. Just think about it, such a thick tube being inserted into my throat. Just thinking about it makes me feel uncomfortable all over."

Both of them nodded.

"But actually, it just looks uncomfortable. It's not that uncomfortable during the procedure. The doctors who perform gastroscopy and duodenoscopy are very gentle. But it's impossible to say that it's not uncomfortable at all. After the examination, they found that there was a problem with the duodenal bulb."

"You're so young."

"Sigh, it's all my fault for never eating breakfast and always staying up late," Ji Xiang sighed deeply, full of regret.

"This doesn't seem to have anything to do with staying up late."

"Of course it's related, and there's a certain probability of complications during surgery. I was admitted to the hospital to stop the bleeding, and then I had another surgery once my condition stabilized. But I recovered after that surgery, and now I run a half marathon every day."

"Running a zebra?! What does that mean?" The patient's family member didn't understand.

"A half marathon," Ji Xiang explained, "I run twenty kilometers every morning."

"You're in really good health."

"Isn't it because I'm scared?" Ji Xiang said with a smile. "After suffering once, I know how to be afraid. Otherwise, I would still be staying up all night every day."

"Being sick is really awful; my heart still races when I think about it now."

The patient's family member suddenly thought of something following Ji Xiang's words, and said worriedly, "Young doctor, do you think my wife might have the same disease as you?"

"I don't know, I'm just interning here," Ji Xiang said with a smile. "I can run errands, but I'm not good at diagnosis or anything like that. You'll have to ask Professor Zhai for details."

The patient's family nodded.

"So tell me, how common is your situation?"

"Not many, but not few either. With surgery, there are bound to be various side effects, as mentioned in the pre-operative instructions for my case. But I never truly understand until I experience it myself. After going through it, I always emphasize this point when explaining things to patients before surgery."

"Several patients were afraid to have surgery because of what I said, and as a result, I got a scolding from my teacher."

"What did they scold you for?" the patient and his family asked in unison.

"The patient doesn't want surgery, but this disease can't be cured without surgery. Especially when the gallstone is stuck in the neck of the gallbladder, it can cause local ischemia and necrosis over time."

"Surgery also carries risks, but they are manageable. Not having surgery is definitely not an option. If I were to give patients a pre-operative briefing or exaggerate the post-operative complications, it would be a waste of time."

Ji Xiang chatted with the patient all the way to the gastroenterology department.

Zhai Yuhan had already contacted the Department of Gastroenterology, and the Department of Internal Medicine successfully admitted the patient. Ji Xiang didn't close the wheelchair until he had put the patient to the bed, and then waved goodbye.

"Don't be afraid, you'll be fine after a few days of medication." Ji Xiang said goodbye to the patient and his family with a smile.

Back in the hepatobiliary surgery department, Ji Xiang didn't say much else, and the thing Zhai Yuhan imagined Ji Xiang would say a lot of "fallacies" didn't happen.

After he finished writing the medical record, he left with Zhao Zhe, leaving Zhai Yuhan somewhat bewildered.

Could it be that Ji Xiang was just kind-hearted and worried that the patient would have pain while walking, so he pushed the wheelchair to take the patient for examinations and to handle the hospitalization procedures?

Zhai Yuhan thought about it for a long time but couldn't figure it out, so she finally just forgot about it.

The production team is taking a day off, and Zhai Yuhan guesses they're probably thinking of some new tricks.

But as the show progressed from episode three to episode two, it became more and more entertaining, and Zhai Yuhan's hostility lessened considerably.

The production team is reliable, unlike those third-rate teams that use the hospital to gain some viewership and then blame the hospital for everything.

Zhai Yuhan checked all the rooms and then prepared to rest.

Half asleep and half awake, another thought lingered in her mind—was Ji Xiang really just kind-hearted?

But if you're only kind-hearted, you won't last long in a hospital; you'll be exhausted.

The next morning, life went on as usual.

The atmosphere in the department was much more relaxed because there was no film crew present.

Ji Xiang didn't show anything special. He wrote medical records and went on ward rounds quietly, just like any other intern, no different from Zhao Mengmeng.

Just before lunchtime, Zhai Yuhan's phone rang.

"Xiao Zhai, what are you doing? There was a problem with that patient from yesterday."

(End of this chapter)