Sunday evening.
Jia Xu sat in Tang Ke’s office with his legs crossed and wearing a meticulous grey and white striped shirt.
In front of him was a pile of examination reports, but the name of the examinee was blurred out.
It was evident that his mind had stabilized now.
It’s just that… Tang Ke always felt that he didn’t look like he was thinking of the next step, but was rather like a patient whose heart was as calm as death after being diagnosed with a terminal illness.
However, what should be said still had to be said: “The situation is like this, malignant tumors have been ruled out, and you do have a gestational sac in your stomach that’s about two months old.” Tang Ke said, “I told you about my speculation when I did the ultrasound in the morning, and now, combined with the other test results, I think it should be correct. ”
He gestured, “It should be because of a mutation in the development of the mesodermal cells, the paramedian ducts have not completed apoptotic degeneration, the uterus, and bilateral adnexa have developed abnormally in your body cavity, and there is a very thin section of flexible duct between the cervical opening and the intestine. My initial guess is that it is due to adhesions between the sinus nodules in the posterior wall of the urogenital sinus and the original intestinal wall.”
Tang Ke frowned and added, “According to the test results, it should have been almost two to three months ago that the uterus and bilateral adnexa in your body started to become active; fortunately, the development was late and it had little effect on your body, but whether you want this baby or not, hysterectomy and bilateral adnexa have to be done. This set of things should not grow in your body in the first place. If the non-steroidal hormones become disordered, it’ll be a problem.”
He spread his hands and said, “I don’t need to tell you this; you’re a doctor too, you know best.”
Jiang Xu finished reading the examination reports one by one, then interlocked his fingers and leaned against Tang Ke’s desk.
“Are you planning to have the baby?” Tang Ke asked.
Jiang Xu stared at the mahogany desk for a moment, as if he were letting go.
“I don’t want to.”
Tang Ke nodded in understanding. Although Jiang Xu’s mind had always seemed strong, he was a man after all, and just accepting the pregnancy had consumed so much of his mind that the idea of not wanting this child was the normal one.
“Can you work out how old this child is?” He asked Jiang Xu.
Although the ultrasound gave a rough guess based on size, it wasn’t accurate.
“65 days,” Jiang Xu didn’t need to think too much at all; he just glanced at the calendar and knew. “It’s been over 49 days; it’s not possible to have a medical abortion.” He had already done the math himself.
But Tang Ke, who was stunned, said, “You and your boyfriend don’t have a good sex life, do you?”
He was quick to accept the fact that Jiang Xu’s partner was a man, and the fact that he could calculate the time so quickly could only mean that it had happened once during that time.
Jiang Xu ignored his words and said, “The diameter of a soft catheter is less than 0.5 cm, and the angle of intersection with the intestine is too small for negative pressure aspiration to be done.”
He had already gone through the various procedures in his mind and knew better than anyone, “We can only do laparoscopy or laparotomy.”
Tang Ke nodded. “We can still do laparoscopic surgery now, but if you delay any longer, we’ll have to do a laparotomy.” He didn’t do surgery, but he knew that there were many side effects and risks associated with a laparotomy. With all the minimally invasive techniques available, laparotomy was considered a relatively major operation, and the impact on the body was big.
“But I have good news here,” Tang Ke said, “I’ve been in a lot of turmoil over the past two days because of you, so I’ve been asking around my friends, and I’ve actually found something.”
Tang Ke took out his tablet and clicked on something before handing it to Jiang Xu.
“I have a friend who is an editor at a foreign journal, and there was an article that was submitted last month on a situation very similar to yours. The author is from M country and the article hasn’t been released yet. It was difficult for my friend to send it to me, but I have that author’s contact information, so if you need to, you can send him an email to see if he can help. However, his patient gave birth to the baby; he did a cesarean section, and both father and son are safe.”
Jiang Xu’s eyelashes trembled.
As Tang Ke had said, this was indeed good news.
Having a case to refer to sounded like a drop in the bucket, but it was better than nothing.
Although surgery may sound like fixing what’s broken, Jiang Xu knew in his heart that for every type of surgery he performed, he had observed his seniors countless times, so he knew all the steps by heart and knew the structure of the human body by heart before he dared to do anything. In addition, he first practiced under the supervision of his teachers until he became proficient.
He dared to challenge, but could not take risks.
It took two hundred years of surgical operations before there was any development, during which countless lives were stacked up in vain and the blood of patients was spilled, all just to bring the techniques to their present state of maturity.
Pioneering often comes with sacrifice, so for the vast majority of doctors in the world today, the art of medicine is more a process of transmission and learning than pioneering.
New treatments could be developed incrementally, provided there was sufficient supporting data, but no one dared attempt ground-breaking new procedures.
Male childbirth is a procedure that has never been done before, and apart from that case in M country, there wasn’t a single thing to be found in the past canonical literature about it, and it occurred less frequently than the rarest of rare diseases.
The procedure involved not only removing the child, but also completing the removal of the uterus and bilateral appendages at the same time. The problem is that this was still a man’s body, and it was hard to imagine the complexity of the vascular and tissue situation inside after opening the abdominal cavity.
The lack of experience meant that the risks were enormous.
“Jiang Xu, if you decide to take it out, I think the safest thing is to contact Dr. Kenn, the main surgeon in that article; after all, he has some experience, but the visa to M country is easy to get right away. You can afford the delay, but the baby can’t.”
The international situation was not too clear, to go there now, a conservative estimate was to wait at least three months. The fetus would be five months old by then.
At five months, it will have memories and can even distinguish the voice of the mother.
Tang Ke paused and continued, “Actually, if you and your partner have a good relationship, it is possible to wait and see the situation. This is also fate, so many gay couples want a child of their own but can’t. This way, you’ll have at least eight months to contact the doctor to prepare for surgery, and it’ll be less stressful.”
Jiang Xu folded his arms in front of his knees and said, “I’m still leaning towards doing it now.”
Tang Ke sighed, “The problem is even if you want to do the operation now, who will operate on you?” He paused and said, “Who in China would dare to do such an operation on you?”
No one had ever done it before, and no one dared to gamble with their career or Jiang Xu’s life.
“If we can get the surgery footage, we might be able to find someone.” Jiang Xu said.
“That depends on how much that doctor in Country M is willing to share,” Tang Ke said, “After all, no one in the world has performed this kind of surgery except him.”
“Actually, there is.” Jiang Xu suddenly spoke and then went silent.