Chapter 404: Chapter 404: Dangerous Situation

Director Han sighed and continued his report. "Despite our best efforts to save her, the patient remains in a deep coma.

Worse still, since yesterday afternoon, she’s had a persistent high fever of 39.8°C. Her pupils are unequal—the left is four millimeters and the right is two—and both her pupillary light reflex and other physiological reflexes are gone.

Her lungs are now filled with moist rales, and she’s experiencing intermittent convulsions in her limbs.

The EKG report shows myocardial damage.

Her white blood cell count is as high as 30.7×10^9/L.

Due to difficulties with the IV infusion, we also measured her peripheral venous pressure. The reading was as high as 200 millimeters of water column.

We then had surgery perform a great saphenous vein cutdown in the groin to measure her central venous pressure, allowing us to manage her fluid volume more precisely."

As Dr. Han finished, his voice was filled with resignation. "And yet, despite all this treatment, the patient’s condition hasn’t improved at all. We’ve tried every available Western emergency medical procedure, but the outlook is still grim."

Li Xu listened to Director Han’s report while carefully leafing through the medical records in his hands.

The pages were crammed with Western medical diagnoses and treatment plans. From the resuscitation efforts to the various test results, everything followed standard Western protocols.

He couldn’t help but sigh. ’This is the City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, of all places.’

Yet when faced with such a critical patient, their first response was still Western medicine. There was almost no sign of TCM anywhere.

’It just goes to show how little standing TCM has in the field of acute and critical care.’ 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Li Xu mentally reviewed the details of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Carbon monoxide poisoning occurs when a person inhales an excessive amount of carbon monoxide. The CO binds to hemoglobin in the blood, forming carboxyhemoglobin. This prevents oxygen from binding to the hemoglobin, leading to tissue hypoxia.

Mild poisoning manifests as headaches, dizziness, nausea, and vomiting.

Moderate poisoning leads to confusion, coma, and increased muscle tone in the limbs.

Severe poisoning can result in a deep coma, cerebral edema, and brain death. It can also cause serious, life-threatening complications like myocardial damage, pulmonary edema, and renal failure.

A case like Wang Qianqian’s—a prolonged deep coma accompanied by a high fever, unequal pupils, loss of light reflex, convulsions, myocardial damage, and a lung infection—was clearly a case of severe poisoning. Her condition had already progressed to an extremely dangerous stage.

"I’d like to see the patient now."

Li Xu closed the chart and spoke in a solemn voice.

Director Han immediately stood up and led Li Xu and the others out of the conference room, heading straight for the emergency room.

In the hallway leading to the ER, Li Xu saw Wang Qianqian’s parents.

They sat on a bench, their faces haggard and their eyes red and swollen, clearly from days of worry and crying.

They were plainly dressed, and their skin was dark and weathered. It was clear at a glance that they were ordinary farmers who had rushed in from the countryside.

Right now, they were staring blankly ahead, their eyes filled with despair.

Seeing the group of doctors approach, Wang Qianqian’s mother immediately scrambled toward them, her voice choked with sobs as she asked, "Doctor, my daughter... can my daughter still be saved?"

Dr. Han shook his head, his tone heavy. "We’re organizing a consultation with specialists, but her condition is extremely serious. Please, you must prepare yourselves."

Hearing those two words, "extremely serious," Wang Qianqian’s mother instantly broke down.

She burst into loud sobs, crying out in a heart-wrenching voice, "Qianqian! My daughter, why did you try to kill yourself? Don’t you know? If you go, how are your father and I supposed to live?"

Her wails echoed through the hallway, moving everyone who heard them.

Just then, Xue Shuheng suddenly interjected, "Ma’am, please don’t cry. Our Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine has specially invited a Divine Physician, Doctor Li Xu. He will definitely be able to cure your daughter, you can rest assured."

When Wang Qianqian’s parents heard the two words "Divine Physician," a spark of hope instantly ignited in their despairing eyes.

Their heads snapped toward Li Xu, their eyes filled with expectation.

However, every doctor present knew exactly what Xue Shuheng was doing. His ill intentions were as obvious as the nose on his face.

He was deliberately building Li Xu up to such heights for one reason: to direct all the potential conflict toward him.

That way, if Li Xu failed to cure the patient, the family’s anger and the pressure from public opinion would all come crashing down on his head.

Li Xu couldn’t be bothered with his teacher’s petty schemes. He had only one thought in his mind: save the patient.

Upon entering the emergency room,

The heavy scent of disinfectant assaulted his nostrils.

A young girl lay on the hospital bed.

Her features were delicate and youthful, and even through the ravages of her illness, one could still glimpse a trace of a young girl’s spirit.

Now, her eyes were shut tight, her face was a leaden gray, and her entire body was swollen.

She was connected to all sorts of life-monitoring equipment. A ventilator rose and fell in a steady rhythm, and the cardiac monitor emitted a faint beep, displaying her fragile vital signs.

Li Xu stepped forward and, without hesitation, began his diagnosis.

This time, he had no special information to rely on; he could only depend on his own fundamental skills to make a judgment.

He began with a facial diagnosis, observing the patient’s complexion.

Her complexion was dull and discolored, her lips were cyanotic, and her body was noticeably swollen. Her skin was feverish to the touch, her breathing was rapid and labored, and a phlegmy rattle sounded intermittently from her throat.

None of the specialists present seemed surprised by this.

To any experienced doctor, these signs were self-evident.

Next, Li Xu lifted the patient’s eyelids.

Her eyeballs were rolled upward, revealing only the lower edge of her irises. This was the "Daiyan" phenomenon—a classic sign in critically ill patients, indicating severe brain damage.

He motioned for a nearby nurse to temporarily remove the ventilator mask, then pried the patient’s mouth open.

A nauseatingly foul odor hit him in the face. Her oral cavity was filled with yellowish-brown phlegm.

Looking at her tongue, he saw that its body was dark and discolored, and its coating was thick, turbid, dry, and cracked.

After the nurse had replaced the ventilator mask, Li Xu checked the patient’s temperature. Just as the chart noted, the high fever had not subsided. He also found that she had both bowel and bladder obstruction, which was further exacerbating the buildup of toxins in her body.

Finally, Li Xu placed his fingers on Wang Qianqian’s wrist to take her pulse.

The pulse under his fingers was surging and rapid.

’A surging pulse indicates flourishing pathogenic heat. The Qi is abundant and blood flow is fast, which usually points to an Excess-Heat pattern. A rapid pulse—more than six beats per one of my breaths—also points to a Heat pattern. Her pulse is both surging and rapid, which means a blazing heat-toxin is running rampant in her body. Her Righteous Qi is fighting back, but the pathogenic factor is too strong. It has already damaged her heart meridian,’ Li Xu analyzed as he felt her pulse.

Li Xu’s expression was grim. The patient’s condition was even worse than he had imagined.

The warm pathogenic toxin from the carbon monoxide poisoning had already invaded her Lung system, causing Lung Qi to stagnate and Phlegm-Heat to accumulate internally. From there, it had moved against the normal flow into the Pericardium, clouding her Mind. This was the root cause of her critical symptoms: the coma, the unrelenting high fever, and the convulsions.

However, he also judged that while her condition was critical, she wasn’t at death’s door just yet.

As long as he acted quickly and applied treatment based on a correct pattern differentiation, there was still hope.