Chapter 2480: 2393 As everyone's words grew fewer, their expressions grew more solemn

2393 As everyone's words grew fewer, their expressions grew more solemn.

Professor Yang rushed over from home, and Chen had already clarified the medical history. The patient had indeed bought ascaris egg capsules half a year ago and taken them orally for weight loss.

It was said the effect was not bad; over the past six months the patient had lost a noticeable amount of weight.

But twelve days ago she began to feel upper abdominal pain; because she was menstruating, she thought it was radiating pain and didn't pay much attention. After her period ended, the upper abdomen still ached faintly, yet she still did not go to the hospital for a visit.

Because she had nausea and dry heaves, she kept thinking it was a stomach flu, took the appropriate medicine, and was preparing her résumé to go look for work.

Unexpectedly, today her condition suddenly worsened to the point of vomiting worms.

This situation having arisen, Professor Yang looked at the images. According to the medical history, there should be an ascaris obstruction in the bile duct. The ascaris had crawled from the duodenum into the bile duct, forming a bile duct obstruction.

Compared with other parasites, ascaris are relatively long and thin, and the position they burrow into, as seen in the images, is also relatively deep.

This operation… is going to be troublesome, Professor Yang had a black line across his forehead.

Nowadays bile duct ascaris infections aren't very common, after all there are many deworming drugs; if something feels off, just taking a dewormer would do.

Moreover, the symptom most likely caused by ascaris is intestinal obstruction, not bile duct obstruction.

Cut open? The location is deep, to cut the liver and remove the ascaris… frankly, Professor Yang really didn't dare to make that incision.

If one were to cut open, accurately locating the ascaris would be difficult, but this would not stump the team-leading professor of 912. Any team-leading professor in the hepatobiliary surgery department could locate the position.

The difficulty, however, lies in how to extract the worm intact and undamaged.

Moreover… the gastrointestinal tract is full of ascaris, and they can come out of the mouth, but it's not certain how many there are.

Professor Yang glanced at the time: 1:35 a. m.

Never mind, let's call a hospital-wide consultation!

Right away!

Immediately!

In his view, using ERCP to retrieve stones retrograde could also be considered for removing the ascaris, and it would cause little injury, being a minimally invasive procedure.

It's just that we don't know whether the people in the endoscopy room dare to do it.

Regardless of whether they dare, the worms in the bile duct are one matter, and the worms in the gastrointestinal tract also need to be removed. We can't just open up the whole GI tract and reach in to scoop out the worms. Whether we can clean them out is uncertain, and the patient would suffer severe trauma.

Make the call, hold an emergency consultation.

Although requesting a hospital-wide consultation at this hour is quite a hassle, the patient is writhing in pain on the gurney, and we can't delay.

There is no one on duty for the gastroscope at night; such an emergency might occur only once every year or two. If there is a related procedure, we still have to call someone to come from home.

Thirty-five minutes later, the second-line professor from the endoscopy room rushed over. He looked at the imaging data just as before, without saying a word.

After looking for a little under ten minutes, he sighed, consulted with Professor Yang, and called Director Luo from home.

After going on stage, joking and laughing is nothing to fear; the doctor says it's fine without concern, and in general it really is fine, not that it's being taken lightly.

What's most frightening is that, late at night, one doctor after another is summoned from home, their ranks rising, their ages increasing, their expressions growing more solemn—something everyone understands.

But the ones who finally answered the phone were Zheng Ren and Su Yun; their ages suddenly seemed much younger, which is quite rare.

"Who's calling you in the middle of the night? If there's an emergency, just go; why are you calling me?" Su Yun, having been woken up, was full of morning grumpiness.

"They say there's a patient with bile duct ascaris, and the location is deep." Zheng Ren had already prepared to set out, urging: "Hurry up."

"One person would be enough, right? Are you preparing for ERCP? Let me sleep a bit longer." Su Yun said she didn't want to, but her body was honest.

He was unhappy, grumbling while putting on his clothes.

"I'm considering using a balloon on one side and a grasping forceps on the other. It requires two operators; one person can't do it." Zheng Ren said seriously: "Hurry up."

"Big brother, bile duct ascaris isn't deadly!" Su Yun's morning grumpiness was indeed strong; she didn't even call 'boss' anymore, just 'big brother'.

Although she said that, Su Yun quickly put on her clothes, and the two tiptoed downstairs.

Heizi was crouched at the stairwell, staring wide‑eyed at the two of them. In the dark night, Heizi's eyes glowed green, looking a bit fierce.

"Shh." Zheng Ren went downstairs, casually patting the dog's head, "We're going to work; you get a good sleep."

"Hurry up, we're rescuing an emergency case, and you're still petting the dog?" Su Yun retorted directly.

"Keep it down, they're both asleep." Zheng Ren put on his shoes and opened the door.

"How long has it been since we were last called out in the middle of the night?" Su Yun asked, yawning.

"About two months, I'd say." Zheng Ren said, "Days without emergencies are really comfortable."

"Come to think of it, it's been years since I've seen a bile duct ascaris patient. Normally you just take deworming medicine, kill the worms first, and then deal with anything else. If you can remove them, do so; if not, wait for them to calcify into stones. What's going on today?" Su Yun ran through the medical history from the start; there were many points to complain about.

"Maybe the patient's situation is special? Or perhaps Director Luo tried and ended up pulling the ascaris in half, leaving half in the bile duct." Zheng Ren speculated casually.

Taking the elevator downstairs, the two ran through the night of the imperial capital.

Zheng Ren still hadn't bought an electric vehicle; although security is much better now, it's not something he uses often, and just charging it is already a hassle. It would be more convenient to run, anyway that's what he thinks.

Simple and direct—that's Zheng Ren's aesthetic.

Quickly arriving at the endoscopy room, Zheng Ren changed his clothes and went in, seeing a shadow flickering at the ERCP room doorway. Just as he had guessed, indeed they were preparing to use ERCP to solve the problem.

Zheng Ren strode over, but he didn't see any ERCP procedure. Director Luo was operating a gastroscope, pulling out things bit by bit.

After glancing at the screen, Zheng Ren was stunned.

What the hell is all this! Zheng Ren cursed inwardly.

Under the gastroscope, one could see white, fluffy things flickering in and out of view inside the stomach. How could this be in the stomach?! Zheng Ren was also puzzled.

Generally speaking, ascaris aren't afraid of anything, but they don't survive in stomach acid; the acidity is too high for them to consider it a habitable environment.

But in an instant Zheng Ren thought of several possibilities, such as violent vomiting reducing stomach acid, plus reflux of duodenal contents through the pylorus into the stomach, which could produce the scene before us.

But no matter what, seeing this many ascaris is rare, very rare; Zheng Ren made a mental prediction.

"Boss Zheng, you've arrived." Professor Yang greeted him.

"Hmm, should we take the ones in the stomach first?" Zheng Ren nodded, "Director Luo, how will we prepare for the bile duct later?"

"First remove the worms from the stomach and colon. If ERCP runs into trouble, we'll discuss it then." Director Luo focused on the operation and briefly told Zheng Ren his idea.

Zheng Ren entered and stared in shock at a red trash bin beside Director Luo, containing a dozen or so yellow‑white ascaris wriggling.