episode_0163

Episode 163. Cat Suin (2)

****

This was my first time seeing a non-human patient. The differences were greater than I had expected. The reactions to evil, the anatomical structures.

It was very different, and he wasn’t just someone with cat ears and a tail, so it was a bit difficult.

The situation is starting to clear up a bit.

I don’t know much about cats, but their metabolism is faster than ours, their kidneys are more efficient than ours, and they don’t blink.

So, that means the anesthesia took effect quickly and wore off quickly. It seems like the anesthesia had a different effect.

It would be a headache to try to be a doctor here properly. I never thought that non-human species would need to be studied and treated separately.

“Wow, I almost died.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you so much for saving my life. I thought I was really going to die because I couldn’t breathe-”

“The hurdle has been overcome.”

I made eye contact with Daisy again.

The patient was squinting. I wanted to give him more painkillers, but his reaction to them was so strange that I couldn’t give him more.

I was so surprised when the patient suddenly fainted earlier. It’s impossible to use more painkillers.

I have some questions. Arrows aren’t a natural disease. There must be someone who shot the arrow and someone who was hit by the arrow.

“Why did the arrow hit you?”

“Picking up mushrooms in the forest.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

The patient coughed again.

Every time he coughed, he squinted his eyes in pain. This must hurt so much… …. Every time he coughed, dark brown blood gushed out from his chest tube.

It really looks painful. My sides are aching. I thought about it for a moment.

If something with cat ears and a tail had scurried past in the forest, a hunter might have mistaken it for a wild animal.

So did he get hit by an arrow? Or maybe there was some kind of discrimination against Suin.

“Where did the person who shot the arrow go?”

“I don’t know.”

Daisy sighed. As if to say that she was used to being sick and tired. Her cat eyes, slightly larger than a human’s, blinked.

“Don’t worry too much.”

“Why?”

The words that came out of the patient’s mouth were completely unexpected. It was almost the first time I’d seen a patient tell me not to worry. I’ve seen schizophrenic patients say that to me in the emergency room before.

“You’ll get better soon anyway.”

“It’s not a wound that will get better quickly, is it?”

“Cat Suin will get better soon.”

“Is that so?”

Daisy started making strange noises, and it took me a while to realize that they were purring like a cat.

“Then it hurts less?”

“It’ll help you recover, maybe.”

I’ve heard the hypothesis that the purring of a cat is a sound wave at a frequency that promotes tissue repair. Is that why?

It was really amazing.

“Anyway, the patient will have to stay hospitalized for a while. At least until the lung wounds heal and it is confirmed that there is no inflammation.”

“Yes.”

We’ll prescribe antibiotics to prevent infection. Since there’s no evidence of infection yet, we’ll prescribe penicillin as a preventive measure.

Although it is ambiguous to consider it as an exudate, loop diuretics can be used to remove the fluid in the pleural cavity. I wonder what medications to prescribe.

The patient was transferred back to the hospital bed.

Earlier, while I was being treated, blood-mixed bodily fluids spilled all over the blanket and bed, so I felt a little sorry for the cleaning staff. It seemed like they had brought in new blankets and a new bed in the meantime.

Daisy sat against the wall next to the hospital bed, still groaning.

“Let me explain briefly.”

“Yes.”

“The medicine will use antibiotics to prevent further infection, and a medicine called a diuretic to prevent pleural effusion in the lungs. However, if you use a diuretic, you will have to go to the bathroom often.”

“When can I remove the tube?”

“The tube will be removed in three days. But I don’t know how long it will take to fully recover.”

“Your family will be worried.”

“Well. I can tell you that everything is fine for now. The procedure went well, and the wound was stitched up. It will recover in a few days.”

Small holes in the lung may heal within a day or two. Larger wounds may require surgical reduction or correction through a chest tube.

“Can you buy it?”

“Yes. This is called pneumothorax, which means a hole in the lung. Small holes can heal within a day. This is a large hole, so it can take several days or weeks to recover.”

Daisy nodded.

“If you notice any redness, swelling, pain, or tingling sensation around the chest tube, please tell me right away. Then I will have to remove the chest tube.”

“Yes.”

“Then… … . Get some rest, and I’ll come back tomorrow morning for rounds. Get some rest, and let me know if anything changes.”

The girl stared at me intently. Her gaze was blank, as if she was seriously contemplating something.

I got up and left the patient.

****

Daisy stared blankly at the hospital curtains.

I thought he was dead.

So I tried to leave a grand will to the friend who brought me to the hospital, but I was out of breath trying to list the people I wanted to mention right before I died, so I choked on it and couldn’t even get to the main point.

anyway.

The empire was very discriminatory against non-humans. It was not uncommon for humans to fight each other over different skin colors.

It’s not unreasonable to say that they mistook it for an animal and shot it with an arrow, but it wouldn’t be surprising if some people shot it.

Daisy was worried that she would never find a doctor who would accept the tragedy of Suin’s death, and that money wasn’t necessarily the issue.

Of course it is a problem, but… … .

You could show an attitude like, “Why bother struggling for someone who’s going to die anyway?”

The professors of the academy. Those who literally live in ivory towers, it was impossible to know how much they would sympathize with the suffering of ordinary people.

Not even a human. There are many people in the empire who think that Suin is not a human, right?

Well, to sum it up, it was all pointless worrying. This professor treated me very diligently and explained things in great detail.

I didn’t know that. Daisy was honestly surprised. Reviving someone who was shot by an arrow and couldn’t breathe? Does that make sense?

But. Anyway, he’s breathing now. He’s recovered. For now, I guess we can consider him alive. Daisy let out another sigh of relief.

Daisy wasn’t the type to trust people easily. On the contrary. It could be her personality, or it could be because she’s used to being discriminated against.

Still, it seemed safe here.

****

There are currently two patients hospitalized. One patient lost sight in his left eye after taking a strange drug, and the other patient is a cat named Suin who was hit by an arrow on the street.

I went back to the lab.

Finally. I was tired all day.

The blind patient took aspirin, so blood clots won’t be a problem for the time being. If he stops taking that weird drug, he’ll be fine.

If it were a modern hospital, they would have analyzed the ingredients and treated it, but they didn’t even ask. They don’t know what was mixed in anyway.

There may be other side effects to that mystery drug. We need to monitor him closely while he’s hospitalized to see if he shows any other symptoms.

Amy frowned.

“But. Can you poke your eyeball with a needle?”

“Yeah.”

“Doesn’t it hurt?”

“It’ll hurt less than other places.”

As long as you don’t move your eye, it’s fine if you put it in the white of your eye, but if it touches the cornea or iris, there’s a risk of blindness.

“It’s scary to even imagine.”

“That’s true.”

It is true that doctors are very strong-willed, but there are individual differences. Since ophthalmic surgery is a microscopic surgery that involves the eyes, I have seen many doctors who are afraid of it. It is also difficult for me to handle.

In the emergency room, if a patient came in with an eye injury, they would immediately call an ophthalmologist. There was no way to do that here, so there was nothing I could do.

Amy nodded.

“But what happened to patient Suin? I don’t know why he got better.”

“What?”

“Is it okay if I take out the arrow?”

“No.”

“Then?”

“They blocked the hole in his torso and drained the water, so he was fine. The blood had filled the space where his lungs should have been, making it hard to breathe.”

“You didn’t block the hole in my lung, did you?”

Of course. To do that, you have to open up the chest cavity and touch the lungs, but it’s better to just leave it and drain the blood.

“Amy. You know lungs are like balloons?”

“Yes.”

“Then, what would happen if I sewed it up to block the hole in my lung?”

“Ah.”

“Yeah. It would have gotten worse.”

The lungs aren’t an organ that can be simply repaired by stitching them up. They are very delicate and fragile organs. That’s what makes them different from other organs.

Amy shuffled through the paper.

“I don’t know about anything else. I think it’s a good story that the girl who treated the cat should be treated. And the new treatment method was developed!”

A new treatment?

I scratched my head.

“What is the new treatment?”

“That’s it. If you can’t breathe because of water in your lungs, you can put a tube under your lungs to drain the water, right?”

So that’s a new treatment? I didn’t know it was a new method.