Sense

Dowook only felt the aftermath of sensory impulse after he took his hands away from the keyboard and stood up.

Prof. Lee, Jeong Woo-seok, and his family in the parlor all stopped talking and were listening to 

his playing.

‘Damn’

He thought of just about every excuse he could make and forgot about them.

‘It started from the piano academy Mom sent me when I was young. And since then, I practiced when I could without letting anyone know.’

The problem was that if he left this place, he wouldn’t be able to play like this again. He discarded this single-use excuse because of its many holes.

“I was planning on letting you hear, but I was the one who got to listen. It was a gift-like performance, Dr. Park.”

Fortunately, Jeong Woo-seok was more focused on enjoying the music instead of asking how he learned to play.

“I was only supposed to check the volume, I’m sorry if I bothered you.” 

“It wasn’t a bother at all, I would like to request another song. I really want to hear Nocturne.”

He didn’t know what it was from just listening to the title. Although he was curious if he could play it without listening to the melody using his special sense, he couldn’t sit back down just because he wanted to sate his curiosity.

“There aren’t a lot of songs I can play very well. If there is a chance, I will play for you.”

As the situation was a bit controlled, Dowook asked Prof. Lee right away.

“What do you think of the patient’s optic nerve? Do you think it can get better?”

“We can’t be sure until we consult with the ophthalmology department, but I think this is the limit. He hasn’t used it for so long, his retina has hardened. Mr. Jeong, this is not yet the final diagnosis. After enough recovery time has passed, we will do a detailed examination and I will let you know.”

“Let’s do it that way.”

The consultation ended after 30 minutes.

As he came out and passed by the reception desk, he saw people waiting in line to enter the VIP ward.

A group of people neatly wearing formal clothes.

Dowook passed by them without a second thought. Then he overheard a conversation that made him flinch. 

-There was a problem at the end-of-year concert due to Mr. Jeong Woo-seok’s health. I hope we can cast the person who played the piano a while ago. 

-Who do you think it was? I haven’t heard anyone say he was teaching a student.

It was a conversation that naturally made one pay attention.

-Do you think he is acquainted with just one or two pianists? Let’s go in and ask.

-The broadcasting director asked Mina to play a few songs a while ago. Do you think he will be satisfied after hearing that? What should we do, Mina?

-I’m really stressed right now so please don’t talk to me.

Dingdong.

He got on the elevator quickly and hid. As they were going to the fifth floor, Prof. Lee started to talk.

“You play the piano well.”

Flinch

“Ah, it was only that song.”

“Song Woo Jin from the Department of Family Medicine plays the violin well, and sometimes performs at the hospital. He also runs an ensemble. He’ll be very happy to know there’s a doctor who can play the piano. He’s been calling me a lot since I became Mr. Jeong’s attending physician. It’s annoying.”

While laughing ‘haha,’ Dowook vaguely said that he would contact them some other time. Connections as doctors were welcome, but classical connections were difficult. He prayed that he could quickly overcome this crisis.

As they got off on the 5th floor, Prof. Lee opened his mouth to speak.

“I’m now going to organize the data from the visit. I’ll send you the chart after I’m done. You did a good job.”

“You can give it to me right away. I have to keep staying at the clinic for a while.”

“Is that so?”

The five seniors from the association who were waiting for him. It would be easier to satisfy their curiosity and send them on their way before the surgeries scheduled in the afternoon started.

Drrrk.

As he entered the resting area, the oldest of the 5 association members, Seongbuk Clinic’s Nam Gung Seok, welcomed him.

“You’re here. We tried to analyze why the patient’s optic nerve recovered amongst ourselves while we were waiting.”

Since this was a study that one could only find interesting, Dowook listened carefully.

“No matter what, in any case that is related to tumors there is an assumption that the perfection of the technique must be guaranteed. Both you and Prof. Choi were top-notch, capable of painstakingly isolating nerve bundles. Thus, normal nerves that were buried in the malformed tissues were completely unearthed.” 

It was a reasonable assumption.

‘Technically, I also borrowed Prof. Choi’s sense, in conclusion…..’

The otherworldly skills of the king of the OR. That was what led to these results.

Dowook got goosebumps on his forearm for no reason. The best surgeon who guaranteed much better results than expected. Choi Hoo was such an existence.

The will to get used to all the senses he’d accepted as soon as possible and become more perfect was overwhelming.

“How is the patient?”

“All of his vitals are well.”

They continued the conversation about Jeong Woo-seok’s prognosis for a while. As they were talking, Son Jae-geol, who’d been moving back and forth busily, poked his head into the resting area and looked at Dowook. 

“Dowook.”

“Hm?”

“You were at the emergency room when the students from the car crash were brought in, weren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

As soon as he confirmed this fact, Son Jae-geol scurried to Dowook’s side and spoke in a low voice.

“One of the male students from the accident had aftereffects, so we did some tests. However, the cause is unclear on the CT.”

“What kind of aftereffects?”

“His eyesight keeps getting worse. Almost to the point of blindness. At ophthalmology, they said it’s not an eye problem but a brain problem. Could you take a look? We need some clues before we can do additional tests.”

When a neurologist called on a neurosurgeon, they requested surgery, not a diagnosis.

At the unusual scene, the eyes of the five people sitting around the table began to twinkle.

The professor from Gyecheon propped up his chin and mumbled.

“A patient with eyesight problems due to the aftereffects of a crash?”

“A fall in a large structure. It’s not just simple trauma, his whole body must have been severely shaken.”

As Dowook watched them start a new conversation, he was engulfed in anxiety that if they got started on a new topic, they wouldn’t leave until tomorrow. So he immediately asked Son Jae-geol.

“Where’s the chart?”

“In the staff room.”

“Let’s take a look. Seniors, I’ll just….”

He was planning to come back quickly, but all five of them stood up along with Dowook.

“…..why?”

“It hurts since we were sitting for so long. Do what you have to do. We won’t interfere.”

* * *

《This is the area where the students hospitalized at Hansung Hospital will take their exams. We plan to have the medical staff on stand-by. Dean Kim Chun Man, who opened the ward, said that in addition to the seven students brought in due to the bus accident, three more, including a patient hospitalized for acute pancreatitis, will take the CSAT…….》

Song Minji, who had been watching the news through her phone, looked at Jeong Taejun, a classmate who had been in the hospital with her for two weeks due to the same accident.

He only lay in bed all day feeling depressed.

“Taejun, are you still having trouble seeing things?”

“Dunno. Don’t ask.”

“The ophthalmologist said it’s only going to be temporary. Your eyes aren’t injured. There won’t be any problems if you just take care of yourself.”

“There is a problem. I can’t take the CSAT. There were just 4 points left.”

Song Minji stopped the video she had been watching.

“I checked but the test area in the hospital over there isn’t much. It’s cramped and stuffy. Will you be able to take the test properly in a place like that? We can take it next year after we improve our condition.”

“We’ll be lagging a year behind the others. How important will that one year be when we enter the workforce? And you can take the test. You have the best condition among us.”

“I’m not going to take it this year.”

“You’re not?”

“I felt the world is quite different after I had something like this on my neck. I want to find a university where I can do what I want to do and match the criteria to go there accordingly. Slowly. Not according to the cut-off.”

“That’s…….”

 Jeong Taejun, who had been acting harshly, said in a soft voice.

“a bit cool.”

“Right? This noona became pretty cool after experiencing an accident, didn’t she?”

“Who’s the noona?”

“Then you should act like an oppa. Don’t be so moody.”

Letting out a big sigh, Jeong Taejun said.

“I want to go to an amusement park. It’s too stuffy here.”

“Should we skip?”

“Your neck hurts, my eyes are like this, where will we go?”

“Riding a wheelchair is pretty comfortable.”

“And who’s going to push us?”

“Uh….each other?”

“Are you stupid?”

Song Minji felt a bit relieved when she saw Jeong Taejun’s expression, which seemed to have returned to his usual vitality.

Click.

In the meantime, the ward door opened and some people wearing doctor’s coats came in. Not just one or two but several. 

“Oh? It’s that doctor.”

“Who?”

“The doctor who fixed the driver.”

Dowook, who was walking in front, saw the girl he had met recently sitting there and nodded his head lightly in greeting.

“Are you two friends?”

“Yes, we’re classmates.”

“Let’s see, name is….you’re Song Minji, this is Jeong Taejun?”

“That’s right.”

“Ok, Minji. We have to do some really important tests with Taejun now. Can you come back later?”

Song Minji’s face froze with anxiety.

“Why? Taejun’s eyes….no way…..”

Dowook shook his head when he saw Song Minji who was about to cry at any moment.

“Stop. It’s not like that. What.”

Dowook covered his mouth and whispered something to her. Face turning red, Song Minji wheeled her wheelchair and left the room quickly.

After the female student left, Son Jae-geol asked Dowook.

“What did you tell her?”

“We’re going to take all his clothes off for the tests, was she going to watch.”

“Re-really?”

“Would it be real? It’s just in case a sensitive diagnosis comes out. Just call his legal guardian quickly.”

“The intern went to get them.”

Dowook went to Jeong Taejun’s side.

“Taejun, I’m Park Dowook from neurosurgery, let me just ask a few questions. When you first woke up from the emergency room. How much could you see then?”

“At first? Um….”

As he received the progress of blindness step by step, Dowook turned his attention to the five seniors who had followed him from the staff room to this place.

‘Collective intelligence is really a scary thing.’

Before they came here, even Dowook couldn’t find the cause when he only looked at the charts in the staff room.

Then, like in the operating room yesterday, he kept rotating among the senses of his seniors through his hands, something that was seasoned by numerous clinical cases that stimulated his mind.

As a result, he was able to figure it out.

The most likely cause was a concussion. It caused too much accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid and part of the optic nerve was swollen. The patient’s symptom was papillary edema.

The reason he didn’t mention it right away even though he found the answer was that if he said it, it would be as difficult to fix the situation as when he suddenly started playing the piano. Like those five not going home until the evening.

“How’s the headache?”

“It was really bad on the first day but it only comes for a short time now.”

“And you didn’t vomit? How about feeling any nausea?”

“I don’t really feel hungry so I sometimes feel nauseous.”

“I heard that the loss of vision did not come all at once. It blurred, blinked, and disappeared. Is this correct?”

“Yes, that was about right.”

He continued to mention symptoms that would help make a diagnosis of papillary edema. Then, as he realized something, Son Jae-geol rummaged through one of the charts and found a sheet that recorded the pressure on the brain and held it in his hand.

“Dowook, do you think it might be papillary edema?”

Eventually, Son Jae-geol caught on. Dowook asked while controlling his facial expression.

“What? If it was, the ophthalmologist should have figured it out by now. If the ophthalmoscope isn’t broken.”

“No, look at the pressure. The brain was swollen and then slowly recovered. So the CT scan can’t catch the lesion at all.  How can it find this, it’s a pseudo brain tumor.”

“Is that so?”

“Ok. This is certain. Dowook, just a sec. I have to contact this patient’s attending physician. We’ve figured it out so let’s have him buy us a drink.”

Son Jae-geol held his phone in his hand.

‘Situation finished.’

The cause was discovered, and he could see the interest of the five seniors disappear in an instant.

It was not difficult to treat papillary edema caused by a pseudo brain tumor.

“Do-doctor. A brain tumor?”

Jeong Taejun, who’d been listening quietly, asked in surprise. Dowook smiled brightly and answered.

“There is the word ‘pseudo’ in front. It means fake. Medical terminology is difficult but some are literal.”

Dowook reassured the patient and looked at the band-aid on the patient’s forehead. Something about his facial silhouette was familiar. Then he remembered the black box video he saw the other day.

“Taejun, you, did the bus driver help you put on the seatbelt just before the crash?”

“How did you know? Did the driver tell you?”

The student rescued by the driver with great difficulty was this child.

“The concussion you suffered was not a fall injury. A typical injury of accident victims who weren’t wearing their seatbelts. Forehead hit. You should be glad it wasn’t a strong hit on the face.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not something you should apologize to me for. I think you not being able to see was because of that. So don’t worry. It will slowly recover by itself.”

“When will I be able to see?”

“Hmm, a complete recovery is about….two months? Before that, it will come and go.”

Jeong Taejun’s face quickly became dark.

“It can’t. I have to take the test. Is there no way my eyes can see in 6 days? I don’t have to see everything. I just have to see the test paper….”

“Unfortunately, we can’t do that. This requires a recovery process where the swollen optic nerve tissue gradually normalizes.”

“Doctor.”

Jeong Taejun’s hand, which was groping the bed, grabbed Dowook’s arm. He probably couldn’t see but he held on and didn’t let go.

“I have to take it. I must.”

“Taejun. When it comes to nerves, if you try to do something with it quickly, problems occur. Natural recovery is the best….”

Tingle.

‘Hmmm?’

Something stimulated his neural circuit and traveled through his wrist. It was feeble, but it was exuded by this student.

He didn’t know exactly what the sense was for, but one thing was certain. The need to take the test and evaluate the score.

If this sense was conveyed, he thought that this was a student who studied really hard.

Dowook felt amazed and regretful simultaneously as this felt a lot like Jeong Woo-seok’s sense which urged him to play the piano.

‘I’m sorry. For some symptoms, the doctor can’t do anything more.’

As he was about to explain one more time that it was best for a future without aftereffects.

Perhaps the lingering senses of the 5 seniors overlapped with the patient’s sense. An idea flashed through Dowook’s head. But he wasn’t sure if this could be a solution.

‘Well…. Hmm?’

Dowook turned to the five who were sitting gloomily. He had forgotten that there were experts right next to him who could verify his idea.

“Seniors. This pseudo brain tumor. If we consider it as idiopathic intracranial hypertension and proceed with an open surgery, wouldn’t it be possible to instantly and completely restore vision?”

All of a sudden, life returned to bored eyes.

“What? What did he just say?”

“He said to make a gap in the optic nerve sheath and drain the accumulated cerebrospinal fluid manually.”

“Give up natural recovery? Is that possible without side-effects?”

“I don’t know about other surgeons, but Dr. Park can. Yesterday, he completely ablated nerve bundles more difficult to control than that. He even saved the optic nerve.”

“There is a more reliable way. Not surgery, but a shunt procedure. Properly controlling the excess cerebrospinal fluid with a thin tube. It would rely on the surgeon’s skills, of course.”

“Oh, then it would be a new case? There is still no case in Korea where such a procedure was performed for papillary edema.”

The discussion moved quickly, and it didn’t take long for them to conclude the idea’s possibility.

Dowook helped Jeong Taejun release him and put his hand down on the bed and spoke.

“The neurosurgery seniors did find a way. But it is not easy.”

“What?”

“If you want to take the CSAT, you have to insert a small tube in your head that day. You can’t leave the operating room either since we have to keep watch. We can barely use anesthesia, too. If it were me, I wouldn’t take it like this.”

“I’ll do anything. I want to try.”

“It is not just up to you. Talk to your parents first.”