I run a clinic in the United States

Chapter 264: Critically ill just after birth

Little Danielle is 18 months old and has relatively strong skills. She crawls around in the "children's play area" in the lobby on the first floor of Iris Clinic. For her, visiting here every day is a must.

Cathy said that this little guy might know that she was born here, and if he didn't come for a day, he would make a fuss at home!
But leaving little Danielle in the clinic's children's play area made it easier for Cathy herself.After all, she is old, and sometimes she can't even outrun little Danielle.

Little Danielle is very sensible and well-behaved. At such a young age, she cannot speak long sentences, but she can already feel sorry for others.Sometimes when Cathy gets tired of chasing her, she will take the initiative to stop and wait for her grandma.

I will also give grandma water to drink.

It’s just that Cathy’s water glass and little Danielle’s water glass are separate. Cathy never drinks from little Danielle’s water glass, so she always pretends to drink from little Danielle’s cup, making her laugh. The girl giggled.

"Danielle, little baby, come here, Auntie will give you a donut!" Park Xiuzhu was envious of this chubby little girl.

"Thank you, auntie." Little Danielle's voice was clear and clear.

"So good!" Pu Xiuzhu touched the little guy's head lovingly and said to her heart that if I had the conditions, I would also like to have a second child.Her health was fine, but she was divorced and couldn't find a life even if she wanted to.

Moreover, she was extremely disappointed with the man and did not want to get married again.

Sometimes, I would have some strange dreams, dreaming about having a baby with Dr. Zhou, but when I woke up, I would only feel ashamed.How is that possible?
It can only be said that it is her own fantasy.

Zhou Qiao had treated the scar on her chest before, and Park Xiuzhu would feel a little charming every time she recalled the touch.

"Little Danielle is so beautiful, so cute." Park Xiuzhu put aside distracting thoughts, sat down and chatted with the old lady who was looking after little Danielle.

Cathy is a silver-haired, skinny, but energetic old woman who walks with great energy.As the guardian who has raised little Danielle to such a great age, she naturally likes this little girl very much.

"Yeah, since I got this little angel, I feel like I'm ten years younger! Serving her every day keeps me energetic. She heals my loneliness and drives away the desolation in my later years. This is the best thing God has given me in my later years. What the best gift."

"She's really cute. She can speak a lot of words, maybe two hundred?" Park Soo-joo asked.

Cathy shrugged and exclaimed a little proudly: "Not just two hundred, I estimate there are three or four hundred!"

"So many, it's really great, quite talented in language!" Park Xiuzhu praised with a thumbs up.

"You are smart, but you are so pitiful. Your mother abandoned you when you were just born, and you have to stay with me, a bad old woman." Cathy looked at little Danielle with eyes full of endless love.

Park Xiuzhu shook her head and said: "She is not pitiful anymore. Although she has no mother, so many of us like her, and she had a happy childhood and was able to thrive. There are many babies in the world who suffer more than her. , just like the child just born today in the community hospital."

"Oh? What's wrong with that kid?" Cathy perked up.

At her age, she no longer likes to watch domineering presidents, nor does she like playing with her mobile phone. She loves listening to gossip the most.Every time I visit the Iris Clinic, I always drag these young people along to ask for more gossip.

Park Xiuzhu said: "It seems that a newborn is critically ill just after birth. No, Dr. Zhou, Murphy, Stephanie, Elena and Ava were invited by the community hospital early in the morning to participate in the rescue and rescue work. Consultation."

"Ah? What kind of disease is it?" Cathy blinked and asked sympathetically.

Park Xiuzhu opened a bag of potato chips and shared it with Cathy and said, "It must be congenital heart disease. The child was found out when he was still in the mother's belly, but the parents were reluctant and insisted on giving birth. I wanted to take chances and wait until the baby was older before doing the surgery, but I never expected that he would be admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit less than three hours after he was born."

"What a poor little baby." Cathy took a look from a distance and felt even more affection for little Danielle, who was eating donuts and holding up a drumstick and playing the drums hard on her little toes.

As Park Soo-joo said, in comparison, little Danielle is much happier.

The lobby on the first floor of Iris Clinic is also relatively large. In just a short while, little Danielle ran from the children's play area in the west to the big red cowhide war drum in the east to play the drum.

This Peppa Pig is so lively and energetic that everyone loves it.

This drum was originally placed horizontally so that Yoona and Danielle could climb up and play. However, Zhou Qiao later felt that it was taking up space and hindering access, so he customized a tall stand and put it upright. , drumsticks hang on both sides.

This also makes it easier to play drums while standing.

Little Danielle, who is more than 90 centimeters tall, holds the drumstick and can barely reach the lower edge of the cowhide war drum, making a soft banging sound.While knocking, he laughed.It's just that she doesn't have much strength and can't hit the drum head in the center area, so the sound is not loud.

In fact, it is good for her to touch her feet frequently, as it can help her growth and development.

Community hospital, maternity ward, newborn mother Linslet Smit was lying on the bed, tears streaming down her face.

"My poor baby, your mother just took a look at you, and she didn't even know whether you had double eyelids or single eyelids, so you were sent to emergency treatment. God, what a cruel punishment it would be to lose you. !”

"Mom is willing to trade her life for yours, if possible..."

"Dear, don't worry too much. The hospital has mobilized dozens of doctors and nurses from various departments to go all out to save Little Putao. I heard that they also invited a team of talented doctors from the famous Iris Clinic in the United States!" She said My husband comforted me.

"Little Grape" is their newborn baby's nickname.

"How can I not be worried? I know about the Iris Clinic, but they always perform surgeries on adults. Even if they operate on babies, they have never done surgery on such a small child!"

"How big is Little Putao's heart? Oh~, my dear Little Beibi, poor little princess... you must be strong. Mommy really wants to hug you and feed you milk!"

"There is nothing we can do now. I hope the Lord can bless her." Mr. Smit prayed and crossed himself lightly on his chest.

"I want to see the baby. Go and borrow a wheelchair." Linslet wiped her tears and struggled to sit up.

"Okay. But even if I push you over, you won't be able to see her."

"It's okay to look through the glass window." Linslet felt very sad. She felt that it was all her fault. As a mother, she did not let the baby develop well and was sick in the womb. It was simply unforgivable. .

The initial luck, in the face of the cruel reality, was like thin ice and snow under the scorching sun, melting away without a trace.

However, if time could go back, she would still choose to give birth to this child.After all, when congenital heart disease was detected, the baby was already fully developed and the heart was already beating. She would definitely not be able to bear it and terminate the pregnancy.

In the rescue room, just about 10 minutes ago, Zhou Qiao and the others arrived at the scene and joined the first aid team.

The mother's amniotic fluid still remains in the wrinkled skin folds of the newborn. Before it has time to be wiped clean, it has dried into a gray-white sticky substance.

This is a poor little baby girl with a gray complexion, blue lips, and rapid breathing. Her heart rate has dropped to 64 beats/minute, her blood pressure is only 67/47mmHg, and her blood oxygen saturation is only about 55%.

Lives are at stake.

"Doctor Zhou is here."

"Doctor Zhou is here!" When the medical staff in the emergency room saw Zhou Qiao, they seemed to have seen the savior, and there was a soft cry of surprise.

"Doctor Zhou, come on." The doctor responsible for the rescue said with a pleading tone.

Zhou Qiao nodded and immediately offered help. The doctor stepped aside and the handover was seamless.He was really not sure, and Zhou Qiao's arrival made him relieved.

Chest compressions, skin bag pressurization to provide oxygen, epinephrine to strengthen the heart, neonatal tracheal intubation...a series of operations are as fierce as tigers. Although there are many items and although they are fast, in fact, every movement is very gentle and extremely standard.

A newborn is different from an adult. All the organs of a newborn are very delicate and fragile, not to mention a baby with congenital heart disease who is sick at birth, no, critically ill.

A doctor sighed, if the baby can survive until he is one or two years old and then undergo surgery, he will be more confident.Now that they are just born, the god of death comes to harvest them!Who can stop it?

Everyone seemed to see a cold death shrouded in the shadows, waving a long and narrow scythe with cold light, slashing at him one after another. Doctor Zhou, exuding a holy light, was resisting with all his might.

But everyone gathered around and could only do their best to help.I didn’t even dare to shout for help because I was afraid of disturbing Dr. Zhou.

Soon, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, because with Dr. Zhou's wonderful hands and unparalleled skills, the newborn baby's indicators finally slowly recovered.

The heart rate rose to 114 beats/min, and the blood oxygen saturation returned to over 85%. Soon, it stood at 90% again.

Although, the higher this indicator is, the better, usually it is 95% and above for normal people.But now it can reach 90%. Compared with the previous 50-60%, that is really the gap between heaven and earth, life and death!
Separated by a thin line, this line is the Huangquan River and the Styx River.

The newborn was placed in an incubator, connected to many monitoring equipment, life support equipment, and hurriedly wheeled away on a hospital bed.At this time, the child's mother was sitting in a wheelchair, pushed by her husband, and had just arrived in the corridor.

"Is that my baby? How is she?" Linslet Smit stopped a nurse and asked anxiously.

The nurse confirmed her identity and then whispered: "Wait a moment, I'll fetch a doctor."

At this time, the medical team rushed to the conference room for consultation to discuss the next step.

The nurse found Stephanie, who was very friendly, and whispered a few words in her ear.

Stephanie glanced at Lynslet Smit from afar, nodded, and came over to comfort her: "Don't worry, relax, the child has been sent to the cardiac intensive care center and can... sustain life for the time being. .”

Hearing this, Linslet Smit burst into tears again. She thought she was temporarily out of danger, but in the end, she could only temporarily...sustain her life.

"We will do our best." Stephanie comforted.

Originally, she had superb psychological counseling skills and prepared a lot of rhetoric on the way here. However, under the shadow of death, she suddenly felt that she could not use it.

Because no matter how many words you say, it will feel inappropriate and will have no effect.She couldn't tell those lies against her will!
If it's a lie, she has thousands of ways to make the other person happy, but what happens next? What if the child is gone?Wouldn't the blow be greater then?I can't express my condolences to the child's mother and her husband.

Therefore, Stephanie could only say: "We will definitely try our best." Then, she blinked and left.She felt that there were tears in her eyes, which were infected by the child's mother.

In the community hospital conference room, Stephanie gently opened the door, walked in, and quietly sat next to Zhou Qiao.

On the other side of Zhou Qiao is naturally Murphy.

Also present at the meeting were many key doctors from community hospitals, including cardiac surgery, cardiology, neonatology, interventional medicine, anesthesiology, radiology, ultrasound, etc.

After a full hour of consultation, everyone finally reached a consensus and formulated a detailed surgical plan.

Nowadays, the heart of newborns has severe aortic stenosis, slightly narrowed aortic arch, left ventricular wall thickening, endocardial elastic fiber-like changes, atrial septal defect (4mm in diameter), moderate to severe mitral valve regurgitation, Heart failure has occurred due to various complex diseases such as mild tricuspid valve and pulmonary valve regurgitation.

These bombs need to be dismantled one by one, which one to dismantle first, which one to dismantle last, and how to dismantle them... It can be said that every step is extremely difficult.

Step by step startling!

The only good news is that the current condition is not a situation where only thoracotomy surgery can be performed. You can try to challenge minimally invasive surgery.

Because if the chest is opened, it will be more complicated, more difficult, and higher risk.

Can such a small baby have a heart as big as an egg?
Moreover, open heart surgery often requires extracorporeal circulation and cardiac arrest.

How can such a small baby withstand the impact of extracorporeal circulation?

Zhou Qiao's surgical idea was that aortic valve stenosis was definitely the primary threat to the newborn's life. He would first perform "angiography + intervention" intracardiac surgery to solve the problem of aortic valve stenosis and relieve symptoms through dilation.

Once this problem is solved, other bombs will be easy to defuse.

His opinion was unanimously approved by everyone.After all, no one here has a better "coffee status" than Zhou Qiao.

Zhou Qiao is top notch!
Surgery begins!

The doctors were extremely nervous. Although this hospital has actually done a lot of "radiography + interventional" surgeries and has done them on many children, this newborn patient is less than a day old and weighs only 2800 grams. This is unprecedented for this community hospital.

age?No, she can only use "age in days" to describe it, or "age in hours" would be more accurate.Because if the operation fails, she may not live for 10 hours, and she will not be able to experience the alternation of day and night, let alone the beautiful scenery of the changing seasons.

Studying, falling in love, working, having a career, getting married, having children, becoming a grandma... She had no chance at all in the life of an ordinary person.

Little Danielle also had none of the lollipops, donuts, and so many toys that she could enjoy.

If Zhou Qiao was not there, the community hospital's first choice would be to immediately use an ambulance to transfer the baby to the University of California Medical Center, or directly call in experts from there.

But top celebrities are neighbors of the hospital, which is much more convenient than the University of California Medical Center.

Zhou Qiao is their first choice.

At this moment, the child's father and mother naturally could not stay in the ward, but followed them to the operating room. In the corridor outside, the child's father was standing, while the mother was sitting in a wheelchair, with tears running down her cheeks.

The newborn’s grandparents, grandparents and other relatives also rushed over one after another.

Before the operation, when the child's parents signed the consent form for the operation, their hands could not stop shaking. The father, who usually has good handwriting, now wrote crookedly, as if he were crawling like earthworms.

The child's mother, however, couldn't hold the pen at all. She barely held it and couldn't press it down.

Ava didn't play the song because the atmosphere was inappropriate.Maybe, newborn babies are different from adults.

A newborn baby encounters a life-or-death crisis just after birth, which is depressing...

"Imaging + intervention" sounds simple but is extremely difficult to do.

The blood vessels of newborns are very thin. When the operation began and the aorta was opened, although everyone had expected it, they still couldn't help but scream!

2 millimeters, only 2 millimeters. This is a relatively thick part of the mouth, and there are many winding and thinner parts inside.

The diameter of the balloon dilation catheter is - 1.5 mm!

With no more than 0.5 mm of "moving space", the probability of a medical accident is extremely high!Don't puncture a blood vessel too easily if you are not careful!

Zhou Qiao's face was very calm, with Murphy and Stephanie assisting him.

A pair of skillful hands remotely controlled the catheter and moved forward slowly against the erupting blood flow!

The medical staff around him didn't dare to say anything for fear of disturbing Zhou Qiao.

This kind of operation poses extremely great technical and experience challenges to the surgeon. For example, it is like threading a needle and thread several meters away. No, it is hundreds of times more difficult than threading a needle and thread several meters away, because the eruption of blood flow will not only cause resistance. , will also change the position and direction of the balloon dilation catheter.

If the needle threading fails, the worst case scenario is to try again, but if the operation fails, the newborn's life will end. The death's sickle will chop it down mercilessly and take away the newborn's soul. The doctor will not do it again. Chance!

There can't be any mistakes, it must be perfect.

What surprised the medical staff was that such a difficult operation took 36 minutes.

Surprisingly, the intervention was successful in just 36 minutes!
The operating room erupted in cheers.The looming Death seemed to have retreated quietly at some point.

"The pressure difference before the operation was 80mmHg. Now the pressure difference has dropped to 18mmHg, and other vital signs are also within the normal range!"

"Oh my gosh, I thought it would take at least eight or nine hours and I wouldn't be able to go home at night, but...it seems like I can make it in time for dinner."

"Yes, he is indeed the best among the best!"

"Dr. Zhou is so handsome! This operation is absolutely top-notch!"

"Why are your hands so dexterous? It's so dazzling to see..."

"Although the first and most dangerous bomb has been defused, there are still tough battles to be fought next, and there are many other bombs!"

"Anyway, dinner should be in time. It's great! It's so beautiful! No, I have to go out and tell the patient's mother the good news."

A doctor opened the operating room door with excitement and came out. As a result, the patients' family members outside were shocked!

(End of this chapter)