Chapter 133: Abnormality (3)

Should I insert it now?

Suhyuk muttered as he watched the oxygen saturation levels drop rapidly.

Baruda had been watching closely and responded immediately.

“The right side must be inserted immediately or they will die.”

What about the left side?

As far as Suhyuk could tell, the left side didn’t look easy either. The oxygen saturation level was still fluctuating slightly, but consciousness hadn’t yet decreased. So far, their progress hadn’t differed much from each other, but there was no way to know what would happen next.

However, Baruda wasn’t burdened by human anxiety, so he could make more objective judgments.

“There is no guarantee that their condition will remain the same. Oxygen saturation of around 80 percent can easily be overcome with just oxygen.”

That’s true…

[In addition, we need a subject for the examination. As you know from earlier, their progress is very unusual. Rather than conducting multiple tests, it would be more helpful to ask a few questions.]

‘Ah’.

Listening to Baruda’s words, I realized that this was indeed the case. Wasn’t asking about a patient sometimes more powerful than doing physical examinations? Especially in cases like these two patients where they had abnormal backgrounds and were undergoing abnormal progressions, it was even more important.

“I’ll ask! This one will breathe pure oxygen!”

“Uh, uh-huh. Right, let’s do that. Doctor! Where is the doctor?”

Fortunately, Shin Hyun-tae agreed with Suhyuk’s opinion and asked for a surgeon instead of arguing against him. A surgeon with a short haircut ran toward them from afar. He seemed to be coming from the emergency room where he was apparently working as a receptionist.

“Hello, Professor.”

“Uh… What department?”

“Internal Medicine.”

“Internal Medicine, yes.” Shin Hyun-tae nodded as he glanced at the lieutenant rank badge on the surgeon’s shoulder. It wasn’t possible to be 100 percent certain, but it was almost guaranteed that a lieutenant would be a specialist. Even if he didn’t know where they were trained, he could believe that they wouldn’t have been assigned here without having done anything wrong.

“Ush.”

Meanwhile, Suhyuk had already opened the patient’s mouth and inserted the endoscope. With the help of experienced emergency nurses, everything went smoothly as clockwork. Shin Hyun-tae turned back to the military doctor after confirming that Suhyuk was doing well on his own.

“What happened? When did you start having symptoms?”

“Oh, yes. That…” The internal medicine specialist seemed momentarily confused but began speaking fluently about the patient. Despite being out of practice for some time, it is said that there is no forgetting one’s first love. His four years of harsh experience at the university hospital before joining the army could not be easily forgotten.

“Both of them came to the training room’s office almost at the same time. At that time, they had symptoms such as coughing and shortness of breath, but it was a persistent cough like you have a sore throat…and there was slight difficulty breathing. They also said their vision narrowed when they tried to clear their throats.”

“Oh. You haven’t seen them since then?”

“Huh? Oh, yes. I work at a hospital.”

“Aha. Then did they receive all the necessary care? When did they come here?”

The internal medicine doctor blinked momentarily. It felt like every day stretched on forever because he hadn’t seen any serious patients for so long. In his perception, it seemed like it had been almost a month since he last saw these two patients.

“Yes…yes, yesterday morning.”

“Yesterday morning. Hmm.”

The attending physician responded with surprise on his face.

Wow… It was hard for me to stay awake this whole time…

He felt like he had aged quite a bit himself.

Of course, Shin Hyun-tae and Suhyuk, who had just finished intubating and supplying oxygen, weren’t concerned about what the attending physician thought at all.

“How did you feel when you first met her?”

It was simply out of curiosity regarding the patient’s condition. The attending physician felt slightly uncomfortable because Suhyuk, though young, seemed to be interrupting their conversation, but he decided to answer politely. Perhaps it was due to the professor’s acceptance of her involvement, but he found himself answering without much hesitation.

“First of all, your blood pressure is…a little high. I think it’s because they were surprised.” The doctor made his judgment based on what he knew as an internal medicine specialist. Since there was no other illness present, he had to consider the possibility of hypertension.

[As expected, having a specialist from Internal Medicine can be very handy.]

Where did he learn that?

[Lee Suhyuk is your only input and output…]

Ahh, enough already.

It was a sound judgement even Baru could appreciate. Although it felt strange for him to receive such praise…

In any case, the Internal Medicine doctor continued to recall the situation at hand. “The heart rate was approximately 110 beats per minute, but the EKG showed nothing.”

This meant there weren’t any problems with his heart.

It was natural. A young man in his twenties who was healthy enough to enlist shouldn’t have any heart problems.

“The breathing rate exceeded twenty-eight breaths per minute for both… At that time…it wasn’t severe enough to cause hypoxia. The patient complained about difficulty breathing, so oxygen at one liter per minute was administered, but other than that…”

In other words, there were no abnormalities except for shortness of breath from vital signs.

“By the way, the chest X-ray taken immediately after admission…” Where did it go?

As soon as the internal medicine doctor started floundering, a nurse lieutenant holding two charts approached him and handed them over. “Here you go, Lieutenant Colonel Kim.”

“Ah, thank you. The image is…ready.” The physician took out the chart with the X-ray taken just this morning from where he had been standing by the door. It was exactly the same as the one saved on Lee Hyunjong’s phone earlier.

“It’s weird…,” Shin Hyun-tae muttered, looking at it curiously.

The photo itself wasn’t strange.

“Yes, it is strange. The picture doesn’t match symptoms.”

It meant there was no correlation between the two. Based on his symptoms alone, it wouldn’t be expected to look like this, but the photo looked almost like a corpse.

“What illness could this be?”

This was Shin Hyun-tae’s first time seeing such a thing despite being a specialist in infectious diseases for his entire life.

The Internal Medicine doctor shook his head at Suhyuk’s frustrated question. “The tests have come back negative.”

“I see.” One might think that results would be immediate after undergoing a medical examination, but unfortunately, reality was far from ideal. Especially when it came to infection-related tests, it usually took weeks for results to come back, as they often required bacterial culture and incubation. Impatience could kill people waiting for their results, and there were cases where patients couldn’t endure the wait and died before receiving their test results.

“What treatment did you administer?”

Suhyuk didn’t seem to dwell on the inconclusive test results. Instead, he was curious about what kind of treatment these two had received while hospitalized.

“Ah…it seemed to be an infection, but I couldn’t grasp what kind of infection it was…so I prescribed levofloxacin and third-generation cephalosporins.”

“Yes, I see.”

It wasn’t a perfect choice, but it wasn’t wrong either. Either way, these two drugs would have been able to treat most community-acquired pneumonia cases.

“We couldn’t completely rule out the possibility that it was a virus… So we didn’t prescribe any steroids.”

“Yes.”

This was a safe choice. If they had administered a steroid to a viral pneumonia patient, the patient really could’ve died. In fact, there were cases where a wrong dose of a steroid led to tuberculosis spreading so much that the affected person needed to undergo a lobectomy.

It was a good drug when used properly but also one that needed to be handled with care.

“Other than that…we only gave him oxygen and didn’t do anything else. He wasn’t in need of intubation yet…” The Internal Medicine doctor spoke as if he were defending himself while looking at Suhyuk’s chart. [Well… It wasn’t such a bad treatment.]

‘Yes. But if it has gotten worse…’

[We must consider the possibility of a virus. Or perhaps super bacteria or anaerobic bacteria, but…]

How could soldiers, especially recruits, catch such strange diseases? And they weren’t even hospitalized patients.

Is this really a virus?

[But there is something odd.]

Baruda kept saying that it was strange, but normally, Suhyuk would’ve gotten annoyed by this point, but he decided to make an exception for now.

“I used two antibiotics already…but they didn’t show any effect. It’s weird.”

It was so strange that even Shin Hyun-tae agreed with him.

“How about the others? They weren’t staying in the same room?”

In response to Shin Hyun-tae’s words, the Internal Medicine doctor responded quite confidently, “That is indeed strange. The antibiotics aren’t working at all? There were no fever symptoms…but they started today. Then we should consider viruses…”

Normally, viral diseases spread faster than bacterial infections.

“By the way, there are no other patients with colds in the same room.”

“No symptoms? Not even any signs?”

‘Everyone else was so unusual that they called for me to be examined at the hospital…but there isn’t one. There aren’t even any coughers.”

“Huh.” The doctor seemed quite passionate about his work. He had created something out of nothing. Normally, doctors were usually withdrawn due to their military service obligations.

Shin Hyun-tae patted the shoulder of the enthusiastic doctor who was focused on maintaining the health of soldiers behind him and continued, “So only two people out of sixteen have this condition?”

“Yes.”

Then it would be very rare, but perhaps the illness could be transmitted between humans.

For example, it could be a disease similar to those found in animals that had been transferred to humans.

“Ummm… Where is this training facility?”

“Yangju.”

“Yangju… Was there any doctor or someone related to the military present?”

“Yes, they were here earlier and went inside as receptionists. Ah, over there. That’s my superior officer.”

“Oh, thank you. First… I’ll give you these materials. If I remember anything else, I’ll call you.”

“Yes, Professor. Thank you for accepting the patient. Please contact me if there are any changes.” The internal medicine doctor left with the ambulance after informing his superior at Yangju Training Camp.

While waiting for his superior, Shin Hyun-tae turned to Suhyuk. “What do you think?” He probably wouldn’t have asked another resident.

If not that, then he had asked questions that were more problematic than necessary. But now, Suhyuk was beside him, and Shin Hyun-tae sincerely wanted his advice.

“First… This isn’t a typical infection. It’s unlikely to be a disease spread between humans.”

“Really? That is your opinion?”

“It is just one possibility but…yes. I think it is likely.”

“Okay. Then let’s ask about the environment of the unit.”

“Yes.”