Son of the Stars

Chapter 46 The Last Sicilians
Estella's situation is very bad, and it is not an exaggeration to say that he is currently in danger.

Lu Chen and the others stayed on the cruise ship for four days, and lived and worked in the base for another four days.After being separated from Estella for eight days, the young man who used to be able to go up and down the mountain like the wind has lost nearly ten kilograms of weight.

The receiving medical team conducted a comprehensive examination on him and gave him a full range of life support treatment.But the treatment didn't work out—Estella suffered from recurring metabolic acidosis and diarrhea, and her electrolyte disturbances were mind-boggling.

The scene of a "savage" comatose in a hospital bed with repeated diarrhea is worrying in itself.And when the patient becomes a "savage", the "contrast" becomes even more interesting.After all, Estella's attire doesn't quite fit the stereotype of a sick person—put Tang Qinglong on the hospital bed, it looks normal than Estella lying on it.

The AI ​​nursing robot has to change the mattress or quilt for Estella, who has passed out, every half an hour.At the same time, he needs to clean his body and turn over frequently.

On the bright side, Estella has basically entered the final stage.There is no essential difference between him and other people struggling in the ICU. If there is any difference, it may be that he has no relatives and friends to pray for him outside the ward.

He is the last Sicilian.In this world, there are no longer his relatives or compatriots.

After a week of hard work including treatment and examination, the treatment team in charge of Estella reported the situation to the Comprehensive Investigation Bureau-they believed that the chance of Estella's recovery was already very low, and there was little point in continuing the treatment.

After discussing with the treatment team, the operatives of the Comprehensive Investigation Bureau decided to inject Estella with a wake-up shot-whether the 16-year-old can understand the fact that he is about to die or not, they still want to ask him if there is anything else An unfulfilled hope or wish.

Estela, who regained consciousness briefly with the help of the awakening agent, only made one request, "Please let me meet the people in this tribe."

The operatives of the Bureau of Investigation's CPU burned and smoked, but they didn't understand which part of the tribe "this tribe" refers to.

After a long period of deliberation, they decided to send Estella to the North American Research Center—let him meet Lu Chen and the others.

After being sent to the research center by a smooth-flying medical plane, Estella, escorted by a group of professional transfer robots, entered the ward that the research center had just cleaned up.

There are 35 doctors and 74 nurses in the research center.

These professionals originally gathered here to receive training related to quantum release syndrome. Now that the training is not over, a "job" suddenly came.Everyone expressed their understanding and actively signed up to participate in the shift process.

So, the profession of a doctor is like this - although they usually shout "I'm going to die of exhaustion" all day long, but they really don't need to see patients, they can't accept it first.

However, a difficult problem appeared before Yang Jianmin and Lu Chen. They were a little uncertain whether the treatment for Estella should focus on soothing and caring, or they should reorganize the treatment plan.

After all, looking at the treatment records at the Mount Argentario base, they basically treated Estella with conventional treatments—the treatments were completely conservative treatments for radiation enteritis and other radiation-induced injuries.

Such a treatment plan naturally has no "effect".Strictly speaking, in this treatment plan, what really works is the body's own repair function.Drugs and various instruments are at best cheerleaders applauding and shouting beside them.

The kind who was owed three months of wages and had to come on stage to cheer for the team.

After being sent to the North American research base, facing such a patient, Lu Chen was surprised to find that...they seem to have many plans to come up with.

"Anyway, according to the previous examination results, the damage to the small intestine is very serious." Yang Jianmin, as the highest-ranking doctor in the research center, presided over this consultation without hesitation, "I took a look at our equipment inventory here-directed induction of stem cells The proliferation equipment can be activated immediately, right?"

"Did you use such a new thing from the beginning?" Lu Chen hesitated, "He has a poor foundation now, even if we have induced a small intestine in a targeted manner, we have to open his stomach to transplant it - will he not be able to resist? "

Yang Jianmin glared at his student, "Do you know why people who deny personality don't live long?"

"What is negative personality? I haven't heard of it." Lu Chen frowned and thought hard, he had never heard of such a "personality classification".

"Because they can only say no—talking is too annoying, and they are easy to be beaten to death." Yang Jianmin rolled his eyes, "Then what do you say, just palliative care until the person dies?"

"Life support equipment can delay the collapse of his system, but if we want to completely reverse the situation, we still have to find the root cause." The critical care physician present made his own suggestion, "I remember that there are fully desensitized pigs in the animal room, otherwise Let's try to absorb it by proxy?"

This proposal was collectively approved by the doctors present. The group of biochemical magicians in the Department of Critical Care Medicine really had big brains—the surgery could at most get some parts from fully desensitized pigs and stuff them into people's stomachs.As soon as the serious illness was dealt with, a "Chimera" treatment plan came.

As a very special bioengineering product, the cost of fully desensitized pigs is still ridiculously high today.But its cost is justified-after extremely complex gene editing, all the tissue cells in the whole body of the desensitized pigs cannot be recognized by the immune cells of the human body.

In other words, all the organs of the fully desensitized pigs can be implanted into the patient and function normally without any immune-related treatment.Apart from certain viral infections that are particularly dangerous for pigs, transplanted patients face little risk.

This is why fully desensitized pigs are expensive—the immune level of this pig itself is close to zero, and there is not even a flora in its intestines.

Normal sows cannot produce such piglets because their immune systems rush right into the embryo and imprint it on the cells.Therefore, the breeder can only ensure the cultivation effect through in vitro embryo cultivation and the program of umbilical cord immune filtration.What's more, all piglets had to be born by caesarean section to reduce the risk of infection.

The cost of cultivating fully desensitized pigs is extremely high, but the price is worth it.A fully desensitized pig can save at least two kidney failure patients, one heart transplant, one lung transplant, one liver transplant and two corneal disease patients.Seven people can benefit from this, and the cost is completely worthwhile.

Estella's core problem is the small intestine. Although the small intestine of fully desensitized pigs can theoretically be transplanted, there are physiological differences after all.The best way is to use the directed culture of stem cells to re-induce the growth of a set of small intestines through Estella's own stem cells.

But this option is unrealistic-it is still expensive, mainly because the risk of laparotomy is too high now.Many organs in his body are failing, and it is difficult to survive such a large operation.

And the advice given by the intensive care physician... is very slanted.Although we can't directly transplant the small intestine of the pig to Estella, we can let the pig eat for him.

To be more precise, the medical team plans to use artificial blood vessels and ostomy techniques to directly connect Estella's arteries and veins to those of fully desensitized pigs.Make Estella a... parasite on a fully desensitized pig.

The terminal galactose structure of the red blood cells of the fully desensitized pigs is also knocked out. In other words, their blood can also be directly infused into the human body and used as normal red blood cells.Better than donating blood -- it doesn't trigger any level of immune response, after all.

This forms the basis for the "parasite" scenario.

It's not that no one has thought of this kind of plan, but... the price of fully desensitized pigs is too expensive, and the act of using a whole desensitized pig to save a person is indeed somewhat inefficient.

But this problem does not exist now - anyway, they are all distributed for free by the coalition government, and it is best to save people.

Finally, after a full five hours of struggle, the operation ended successfully.Two fully desensitized pigs had their spinal cords cut off and fixed on a bed frame. Under the joint action of artificial blood vessels and blood pumps, the two pigs shared organs and blood.

The two fully desensitized pigs will be Estella's external organs and work hard to create conditions for his recovery.After Estella's vital signs are stable and the small intestine induced by stem cells is formed, the transplantation can begin.

The last Sicilian seemed to live on for decades.

(End of this chapter)