Surgery Godfather-Chapter 545 - 495: Tokyo Night (6)

At this point, Professor Liang was also getting anxious, despite having a lot of confidence in the surgery.

But the current electrocardiograph waveforms clearly indicated an imminent cardiac arrest. Based on his experience, it wouldn’t last more than three minutes.

"This is not good, look, the patient won’t last much longer, right?"

Professor Liang immediately shared his judgment with Professor Su and Professor Qin beside him.

Professor Su was even more nervous, he quickly grabbed his mineral water, forcefully unscrewed the cap, and hurriedly took a sip to calm himself.

"To have made it this far, has already elevated the level of such surgeries by several steps!" Professor Su said.

Su Nanchen and Song Yun, these young doctors, who were completely immersed in the smooth progress of the surgery, were suddenly awoken from their dream by this sudden change.

"What happened?"

Huang Jiacai is not a doctor, but at this point, he too understood something was wrong from the atmosphere in the room.

"It seems Fujiwara’s father might not make it."

Old Cheng was startled by the sudden change in the electrocardiogram.

The professors from Tokyo University also breathed a sigh of relief at this time.

"It seems the model was accurate?"

"There must be a problem with the model, in our simulation the patient couldn’t even get to this step."

"But the outcome is the same!"

"With continuous improvements to the model, optimization of algorithms, and perfection of data, there hasn’t been a failure in the simulation in the recent five years."

Learning from the previous lessons, Komori Daisuke and Mitsui refrained from shouting out loud.

Fujiwara Masao had already stood up, he glanced at the screen, then at his uncle who was covered by the sterile sheet, the erratic ECG was probably indicative of his last moments. After exchanging looks with Miyuki, both of them moved closer to the surgical table while maintaining a safe distance of one meter.

Clinical situations could sometimes slowly progress or suddenly occur.

Fujiwara Masao had already become accustomed to this, they had to accompany their uncle through his final journey.

"What happened?" Miyuki asked in a low voice.

Fujiwara Masao held onto Miyuki’s outstretched hand, maintaining silence.

From experience, there was no hope of safely getting through the surgery with such a sudden change.

Fearfully--it might be over!

"Professor Fujiwara!"

Komori and Matsui came to Fujiwara’s side, but Professor Fujiwara waved his hand.

Let nature take its course, in such a situation, any resuscitation would be futile.

At this point, the compensatory abilities of the heart and the medulla oblongata had been exhausted, rescue would be in vain.

Since the chief surgeon was still engrossed in the surgery, just let it proceed naturally.

Suddenly, the heart rate which had dropped to only a dozen, began to rapidly increase, soaring to nearly two hundred beats per minute.

Everyone’s hearts leapt to their throats with the heart rate, and then, after less than two seconds, the heart rate dramatically plummeted.

Finally, as everyone had anticipated.

Like an elevator plummeting out of control, after the fall, there was tranquility.

All waveforms in the ECG vanished, becoming a straight line.

The whole heart ceased its electrical and mechanical contraction activity, the P wave and QRS complex on the ECG disappeared, directly becoming a straight line, pumping of blood from the heart ceased, and blood supply to all organs was cut off.

It was like a city suffering a power outage, plunging into darkness in an instant.

Resuscitation?

It would be meaningless!

Everybody knew that the patient wouldn’t last much longer, but they had not expected it to happen so quickly.

Miyuki’s head leaned against Professor Fujiwara’s shoulder, she bit her lip, Fujiwara gently patted her back: "Be strong, what has to come will come!"

Everyone felt like they should do something at this point, but Yang Ping’s hand did not stop.

Song Zimo and Xu Zhiliang were focused, following Yang Ping’s rhythm with undivided attention.

Fujiwara Masao silently watched Yang Ping, being awed by this level of focus, this was a true respect for life, a true all-out effort.

Komori wanted to tell Yang Ping---the patient showed no signs of life.

Fujiwara Masao blocked Komori, shook his head, indicating: "Don’t disturb him!"

Maintaining silence at this moment was the greatest respect for the chief surgeon, the greatest respect for the effort he had put in.

The entire operating room fell into silence.

But the doctors and nurses on the surgical table were still intently carrying on with the surgery.

Instruments were handed over one by one, as if the patient were still alive.

Fatty Liang stared at the straight line and was about to speak.

Yang Ping spoke: "Stay calm!"

"Yes! Stay calm!"

Fatty Liang sat down, habitually crossing his legs, slightly adjusting the anesthesia machine’s tubes.

The ankle he exposed made the Japanese surgical gown look like it was a pair of Capri pants.

The dripping of the hanging fluid had stopped, there was no flow visible in the pipeline of the infusion device, Zhou Can looked at Fatty Liang.

Fatty only said: "Stay calm!"

"Stay calm!"

Zhang Lin told Komori, Matsui, and others to keep quiet.

Besides the word "calm", Yang Ping didn’t utter another word.

Time passed by every minute and every second.

One minute, two minutes, three minutes---

Eight minutes passed, making it ten minutes since the cardiac arrest. Everyone appeared calm.

The outcome seemed certain!

We could pronounce him dead!

Whether he was a tycoon or a beggar on the street, he ultimately couldn’t escape the laws of life.

---

"Ten minutes! We can pronounce him dead."

Ito heaved a long sigh.

"It was a great success indeed; perhaps in a few years, he might succeed with such a case."

Ikeda felt deeply regretful.

"Such a tenacious young man."

Ito exclaimed.

"I remember when I was operating on a car accident victim, the patient died due to hemorrhagic shock during surgery. I knew she was already dead, but I couldn’t stop my hands. I kept trying to stop the bleeding, to suture her up. I remember the chief surgeon shouting at me, ’Ito, that’s enough! Stop! She’s already dead! She has been gone for a while! You’re a doctor and need to remain calm and objective! Stop and move on! There are more people waiting for you to save them!’ But I couldn’t hear him, I mean I TRULY couldn’t hear a thing. I couldn’t bear the cries of the victim’s daughter, her heart-wrenching sobs echoed in my mind. All I could think in the moment was: I have to save her, I HAVE to save her, SAVE HER!...back then, I was probably around thirty."

Ikeda looked at Yang Ping, who was still persisting on the screen, and couldn’t help but shed tears as he recalled his own experiences from his youth. The memory felt as fresh as if it had happened only yesterday.

"Wipe away your tears, the younger generation is watching us."

Ito handed Ikeda a tissue.

"As a doctor, I am respected wherever I go. No matter who they are, people bow in respect and address me as ’sir’ when they meet me. Over the decades, I’ve saved countless patients, but many others have slipped away from under my knife, leaving this world forever. Some of these losses were due to limitations of human medicine, some were my own deficiencies in skill, and some were simply errors in my judgment. I often find myself thinking that, if given a second chance, some of those patients could have lived." Ikeda grabbed the tissue, but made no move to wipe away his tears.

Ito shook his head: "Every doctor has this sense of helplessness. There are gaps in human medical science, flaws in the doctor’s skills, and even errors that doctors make. As long as we have a sincere heart, we have no need to blame ourselves. Like Dr. Yang, he has given his all; the outcome may not have changed, but progress has been made. The field of medicine is just like that, with gradual accumulations. In a few years, maybe it’ll be him, or maybe it’ll be someone else who succeeds."

"Do we need to declare the outcome?" Ito said, remembering that the patient was already dead, and he looked back at the silent hall.

Ikeda shook his head: "Wait, keep quiet and let Dr. Yang finish the surgery."

The whole hall remained silent.

It had been ten minutes, he could be declared dead.

The brain cells were already dead, and the cells of various vital organs had begun to deteriorate.

---

The chief surgeon who was still persisting, maintained the quality of the operation. Each and every blood vessel was handled very perfectly, and the tumor was delicately extracted from the deep pons and upper spinal cord— a large one with two smaller ones, to be gently placed on the tray.

"Great job!"

Fujiwara Masao bowed deeply.

"Double-check for any bleeding under the microscope, rinse, and close!"

Yang Ping stood up, handing over the remaining surgery to Song Zimo and Xu Zhiliang.

He turned to look at the flatline on the screen, staring.

"Dr. Yang?"

Fujiwara Masao, filled with gratitude, reminded Yang Ping.

Yang Ping was still staring at the screen: "The surgery was very successful!"

Very successful?

The patient’s heart had stopped beating for twelve minutes!

"In thirty more seconds, the heartbeat will return. Once the heartbeat is restored, follow the principles of advanced cardiopulmonary resuscitation to medicate. After recovery, there won’t be any neurologic sequelae." Yang Ping said calmly.

What he was predicting was a very low probability event that could occur in the system space after countless simulations - the Lazarus Syndrome!

This patient would be "dead and resurrected"!

Since it was reported in 1982, there have been only about fifty cases reported globally till now.

Lazarus Syndrome, or delayed return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC), happens when after failed attempts of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, all rescue measures including external chest compression, machine-assisted breathing, IV fluid infusion, and rescue medicines are stopped, the blood circulation restarts out of nowhere. Hence, it’s also known as the phenomenon of "coming back from the dead".

In layman terms, "coming back from the dead"!

There have been cases where the patient was declared dead, taken to the morgue, but then came back to life and crawled out of the morgue. He ended up eating in a restaurant close to the hospital, managed to be seen by the attending doctor, who was then shocked out of his wits thinking he had just seen a ghost.

However, the probability of such "coming back from the dead" cases is extremely low.

Although the patient, for several reasons, didn’t receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation though his breathing stopped for twelve minutes and then resumed spontaneously, it can still be classified as Lazarus Syndrome.

Though everyone knew that what Yang Ping said was ridiculous, everyone was solemn at that moment.

Every doctor present hoped his words were true.

Thirty seconds!

Liang Fatty stared at the monitor screen, the resuscitation drugs were ready and could be used at any time.

When the thirty seconds were up, really, really!

The lifeless line on the screen began to move, twitching a few times, and then a wave appeared.

Eventually, clear P-waves and QRS complexes appeared!

Resurrection, it really came back to life!

Fujiwara Masao looked at Yang Ping as if he were dreaming. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓

Without any intervention, the patient on the operating table revived.