Xu Qinghe didn't sit down. She steadied herself and stood beside him, looking at the imaging data on the screen.
She had never brought those feelings into her work, especially when facing him.
"Is it complicated?" she asked, not fully understanding.
"Yeah," Shi Wenli handed her all the patient's materials.
Xu Qinghe opened the medical record: a 42-year-old male, left temporal lobe lesion involving the language functional area.
This surgery required awake craniotomy to ensure that the lesion could be removed without damaging the language area, thus avoiding postoperative aphasia.
Shi Wenli continued, "The patient is a math teacher. He's been very anxious these past few days, worried that he won't be able to speak after surgery and won't be able to teach normally again. He knows he needs to be awakened during the operation. I've already communicated with him in detail and helped him with psychological counseling. He's going into surgery tomorrow, so it's inevitable that he'll be scared beforehand. When you visit him later, please comfort him well."
Xu Qinghe nodded. "Okay."
During excision surgeries like this, the incidence of seizures during the wake-up phase is relatively high. Preventing seizures is one of the key points of tomorrow's anesthesia work.
After finalizing the anesthesia plan, Xu Qinghe picked up the folder and images. "I'll go visit the patient first."
She then noticed there were two oranges on his desk, probably given by a colleague.
Shi Wenli also stood up. "I'll go with you."
As he spoke, he handed her the two oranges. "Take these back to eat later."
"Thank you." Xu Qinghe took them with a smile as usual, temporarily placed them on the table, and headed to the ward first.
Both of them were extremely meticulous in every preoperative visit, which was also a reason they had common topics.
Shi Wenli was known in the hospital for having good interpersonal relationships, but among his female friends who could get him to voluntarily sit next to them in the cafeteria, there was only Xu Qinghe in the years since he graduated.
Arriving at the ward, the patient and his family were waiting for them.
Xu Qinghe first asked the patient, "Teacher Zhang, how are you feeling now?" Then she introduced herself, "I'm the anesthesiologist for tomorrow's surgery. My surname is Xu."
Patient: "Hello, Dr. Xu. Director Shi has already told me that I'll be woken up during the operation. I'm still a bit worried—will I feel pain when I wake up tomorrow?"
"You'll be under awake craniotomy, not accidental awareness during general anesthesia." Xu Qinghe explained the difference in detail. "Don't worry. When we wake you up, we'll ensure adequate analgesia. You won't feel any pain at all. Moreover, after the surgery, you won't remember anything about being awake in the middle."
The patient had heard Shi Wenli say before that even if he was awakened in the middle, by the end of the entire surgery, he wouldn't remember anything that happened during the procedure. Now that the anesthesiologist also guaranteed it, he felt much more at ease.
Xu Qinghe then asked in detail about the patient's past medical history and any allergies.
Due to the special nature of awake craniotomy, they needed to rehearse the entire surgical process with the patient in advance today.
She wanted to position the patient's head as it would be during surgery. Shi Wenli took the folder and images from her hand.
The images were used for the patient to identify objects on them, confirming whether the patient could speak correctly when awakened.
Shi Wenli pulled out the first image and asked the patient, "What is this?"
The patient was still a bit nervous initially, but when he saw the animal on the picture, he suddenly smiled.
He remembered when his daughter was a few months old, he bought black-and-white flashcards for her to look at.
Now he was like a child himself.
Shi Wenli said, "During tomorrow's surgery, when we wake you up, we'll ask you what these patterns are. Just say whatever you see. You'll also need to repeat words—whatever the doctor says, you repeat. I'll also ask you to count numbers."
Patient: "How to count? Not from one to a hundred, right?"
Shi Wenli: "One to ten."
"...That simple?"
The patient's wife chimed in, "If you can say one to ten, I'll be grateful. You're being woken up in the middle of surgery, still lying on the operating table. You think they'll give you a math contest problem to solve?"
Everyone laughed.
After the visit, the two came out of the ward.
Shi Wenli glanced at the electronic clock in the hallway. It was almost eight o'clock.
He said to Xu Qinghe, "Go home early. You'll be busy again tomorrow."
Xu Qinghe didn't head toward the elevator. Instead, she followed him back to the office. Her voice was low. "...I haven't gotten my oranges yet."
Shi Wenli smiled, almost forgetting about that.
Now that work was done, they finally had a moment to chat.
"Weren't you supposed to be back next month?" Xu Qinghe asked, puzzled.
Shi Wenli: "The training project was completed ahead of schedule."
Xu Qinghe nodded. "I see."
Not only was it completed early, but it must have also received high recognition from the foreign hospital; otherwise, they wouldn't have issued a consent letter.
She vaguely remembered that there seemed to be a week off after the training.
"Why did you come to work today?"
Shi Wenli said, "I'm saving those five days off for Shi Miao's wedding."
Xu Qinghe was so busy that she had forgotten about that reason.
Shi Miao was his younger sister, also a doctor, in the cardiothoracic surgery department of this hospital. Her wedding was scheduled for the ninth of next month.