Life is Like a Journey – Chapter 48
by Little PandaVolume 1: Rise
Strange
Rabies?
“Director Lu, it’s not just me saying, you know how expensive American-made erlotinib1 is, our research center has also invested great effort and substantial cost to develop this, and it has already passed clinical trials…”
Lu Qingshi pointed at the report on the table: “The trials have indeed passed, otherwise I wouldn’t dare to buy your medicine, but the data doesn’t seem to be very good either”
The face of the man opposite stiffened for a moment, Lu Qingshi didn’t give him a chance to catch his breath and continued: “Compared to the American-made one, this price is indeed still reasonable, but you also know that for medicines not included in medical insurance, for patients and hospitals, we doctors more or less have to bear risks. How about this, one thousand yuan per box, I won’t ask for your commission, and I’ll provide clinical data for free, how’s that?”
The Indian generic drugs on the market all cost around two thousand to obtain, Lu Qingshi’s proposal was simply asking for a lion’s share.
The female secretary standing next to the pharmaceutical representative widened her eyes, about to open her mouth, but was glared back by the man with a stern look.
“Alright, then later…”
Lu Qingshi sat up straight in her chair: “Later you go report to the medical department for reimbursement. First, give me two boxes to try the effect.”
The woman, with a pained expression, took out four boxes of medicine from her briefcase and handed them over. Lu Qingshi held them in her hand, weighing them, quite satisfied, and prepared to get up.
“Oh, by the way, don’t forget to bring me that gemcitabine2 together, I’m in a hurry to use combination therapy.”
Erlotinib and gemcitabine are currently one of the best targeted drugs for pancreatic cancer on the market, and also a key product of their Lunan Pharmaceutical. In order to develop a perfect domestic alternative drug, the company spared no expense to poach experts from the United States. Several generations had worked hard for decades to finally succeed, having just passed clinical trials not long ago. Lu Qingshi was not just opening her mouth wide like a lion, but like a bloody basin.
The woman’s heart was bleeding, but the man, who often maneuvered between major hospitals and had seen many storms, still slightly twitched the corner of his mouth. Seeing her intention to leave, he quickly stood up to see her off.
“Then, about the clinical data, please, Director Lu…”
“Alright, no need to see me off, it’s quite tiring,” Lu Qingshi pulled out a stack of renminbi (RMB or yuan) from her wallet and placed it on the table. “If the medicine works well and benefits the patients, I’ll naturally pay attention to the data. I won’t let your Manager Huang treat this meal either. Goodbye.”
With that said, she took the medicine, slung her backpack over her shoulder, and left directly.
The female secretary also stood up, indignant: “This Lu Qingshi is truly a tight-fisted iron rooster3.”
The man looked at the stack of money on the table and smiled: “She’s much nobler than us. Alright, we can go back and report now. As long as erlotinib can be marketed, what does this small loss matter now? We’ll earn it back sooner or later.”
“Wu Xinyuan, are you feeling better today?” As usual, Yu Gui would visit the ward in the afternoon for rounds. Today, as soon as she stepped through the door of the ward, a sour and foul odor assailed her nostrils.
She had already grown accustomed to this smell, but Wu Xinyu, who was patting her sister’s back beside her, seemed a bit embarrassed: “This… my sister has been vomiting frequently these past few days… but nothing much comes up… it’s all just clear water…”
One of the typical symptoms of pancreatic cancer, Yu Gui’s eyes dimmed for a moment. After waiting for her to finish vomiting and helping her lie down: “Come, don’t move, let me examine you.”
Teacher Lu had instructed this morning to pay special attention to this patient’s jaundice4 condition. Sure enough, her face was waxy yellow, and her tongue was also covered with a layer of jaundice. She quickly took notes.
“Doctor… what exactly is my illness… Wasn’t I just stabbed a few times? The wounds are almost healed…” After vomiting, she was completely exhausted. Wu Xinyuan lay on the pillow, casting a pleading look towards her sister and the doctor.
Coincidentally, both of them averted their gaze at the same time. Although patients have the right to know, Yu Gui still didn’t want to reveal this cruel truth – pancreatic cancer, the king of cancers.
Even with resection surgery, the survival rate within two years post-operation is less than 5%. Difficult to detect and cure is its hallmark. Everyone wants to be part of that 5%, but more people just contribute to the mortality rate statistics.
Wu Xinyu, with reddened eyes, comforted her: “Just stay a few more days! Only when the wounds are completely healed can you…”
Wu Xinyuan became agitated, half-sitting up: “The medical fees are so expensive, do you think the hospital is a hotel?”
As soon as the words were spoken, a sharp pain struck her abdomen. She suddenly fell back, collapsing heavily onto the bed, her vision going black.
Wu Xinyu shook her a couple of times with no response: “Sister… Sister?!”
Yu Gui quickly brushed the person aside: “Quick, quick, bring over the bedside ultrasound! Nurse, where’s the nurse!”
“Coming, coming,” Hao Renjie came running, pushing the medicine cart.
Yu Gui threw down the stethoscope from her neck and pressed it against her chest, while giving orders: “Open an intravenous line, one dose of pethidine for pain relief, call Teacher Lu, quickly ask her to come back for a consultation.”
After administering the painkiller, the situation over there stabilized temporarily. Yu Gui went to see other patients, with Hao Renjie muttering beside her: “Hey, do you know, that one we rescued from the mall last time, who should have been transferred to oncology long ago? They’ve been refusing to take her, claiming the beds are full, and forcibly sent her back to emergency. Are they the only ones with tight bed space and we’re not? It’s just that they’re afraid the patient can’t afford to pay the medical bills, making it seem like we’re the ones doing charity…”
She often went to the wards when she had free time, so she knew a bit about the situation of those two sisters. When they were young, their father went out to work and was killed by falling bricks at a construction site. As a temporary worker, there was no work injury compensation, and the boss ran away, so they didn’t get a penny in compensation.
Their mother farmed at home to support the two sisters’ schooling, but later she also fell ill suddenly and passed away. The elder sister was good at studies, so the younger sister dropped out of school early to work and support her sister’s education. They’ve been depending on each other until now.
As for what kind of work this was, how can outsiders judge right or wrong.
Yu Gui wasn’t a saint, and could even empathize with a fraction of the pain of being forced into a desperate situation.
After paying this week’s medical fees, Wu Xinyu was left with only four coins on her entire person. She sat down on a long bench in the corridor with her empty wallet, thought for a moment, and still took out her phone. But before she could send out messages to borrow money, they were rejected. She went through several contacts in succession, all with the same result. Those men who used to say they loved her to death and back seemed to have disappeared overnight, and worse, some even came to her doorstep demanding repayment of debts.
The young girl’s frail shoulders shook violently as she silently covered her eyes with her hands.
After sitting for about half an hour, Wu Xinyu got up and returned to the cramped rented room she shared with her sister. On the mottled walls were pasted a few old newspapers and her sister’s award certificates. The table, whose color was indiscernible, was piled with miscellaneous items. Her cheap cosmetics were placed side by side with her sister’s notebook. She shook off the dust on it and picked it up. Opening it, her sister’s neat handwriting came into view.
“June 18th, after paying tuition with the money saved from tutoring, there’s still some left. I can buy Xinyu a new piece of clothing.”
“October 3rd, took Xinyu to eat at Haidilao, which she’s been wanting to try. She was very happy. I really hope she can be independent and not rely on anyone.”
“December 9th, Xinyu’s birthday, but she didn’t come home. Still hanging out with those men. We had the biggest fight ever. I’m sorry I even hit her. Afterwards, I regretted it deeply. As her older sister, I failed to fulfill my responsibility to protect her, and instead let her bear many storms alone. Her becoming like this today is also partly my responsibility…”
At this point, tears blurred the ink, drying into a wrinkled mass on the paper. As Wu Xinyu looked at it, she covered her lips, and new marks were added to the already dried ink stains.
“Dr. Lu, that medicine… please continue to use it for my sister…” In the afternoon, just as Lu Qingshi started her shift, Wu Xinyu came to her office with a pocket full of colorful coins.
Lu Qingshi raised her eyes to look at her once, then continued to write medical records with her head down: “Even if we use it, it might not be effective.”
Wu Xinyu gritted her teeth: “Surgery can’t be done, and the medicine might not be effective. Are you asking my sister to wait for death?!”
Her anger seemed like a punch hitting cotton. The person opposite her interlaced her fingers under her chin, quietly looking at her: “You can accompany her through the last period of time.”
To be honest, she didn’t have much fondness for these vine-like beings who lived depending on others. With hands and feet, why live so worthlessly and without dignity.
Wu Xinyu bit her lower jaw hard, her masseter muscles bulging out, her eyes red, looking as if she wanted to swallow Lu Qingshi alive.
But surprisingly, this woman who had long been frequenting nightclubs and didn’t have a particularly good temper, at this moment, miraculously suppressed her anger.
She had seen too many people like Lu Qingshi, who unconsciously look down at others from top to bottom when looking at people, a habit developed from years of being in superior positions.
Having seen too many separations and deaths, the doctor’s gaze was calm and indifferent. She wore no decorations on her body, only a wristwatch on her wrist. She recognized at a glance that it was a globally limited edition from a certain Swiss brand.
She had seen it in a client’s display case before, while her own wrist was now bare, with only a ring of tan line left.
Wu Xinyu stroked it, her nose stinging, and slowly knelt down: “Dr. Lu… you might look down on people like us… but my sister is truly excellent… she hasn’t even graduated from university yet… she’s still very young… about the last period of time…”
Tears fell one by one onto the floor: “I never thought about that at all, I just want her to live. She is my only family left in this world.”
“I just want him to live. He is my only family left in this world.”
At that time, facing the man’s angry roar, she had also calmly said these words with tears streaming down her face.
As if in an instant, time reversed, and a crack appeared in the perfect expression of the high-and-mighty doctor.
Just as she was about to kowtow, Lu Qingshi stood up, avoiding her.
“The mortality rate is 95%.”
Wu Xinyu was stunned, unable to process it for a moment. Lu Qingshi repeated: “The mortality rate is 95%. After using combined medication to shrink the tumor diameter and then surgically remove it, I won’t even mention the survival rate to you. The mortality rate is 95%.”
Wu Xinyu, though crying, slowly smiled: “For that 5%, I’m willing to give it a try.”
“Doctor, doctor, come quickly and see what’s wrong with him! Doctor!” Suddenly, two young boys rushed into the crowded outpatient hall. One of them was being dragged along, his limbs twisted into a strange posture, eyes rolled back showing the whites, and foaming at the mouth.
“Holy crap!” Hao Renjie sprang up from the triage desk: “Yu Gui, Yu Gui, quickly bring a wheeled bed!”
“Coming!” Yu Gui came running with a wheeled bed, and together with the boy, tried to place the person on the bed. However, the boy in the hoodie who was originally slumped on his shoulder suddenly went berserk, letting out a blood-curdling howl. With strength from who knows where, he shoved them away and then lunged wildly at the people around.
The woman who was pounced on let out a scream, and the crowd fell into chaos. Seeing the situation turn bad, the security guards quickly rushed over. Several big, burly men barely managed to restrain him.
Yu Gui, still shaken, exclaimed: “My goodness, is this rabies?!”
The other boy who came with him also looked anxious: “Impossible, he’s my classmate, he hasn’t been bitten by a dog recently!”
The young man pinned down by the security guards started convulsing, his limbs flailing on the ground. The guards were unsure whether they should let go or not.
Yu Gui put on gloves and approached to feel his carotid pulse. Before her hand could touch him, the boy seemed to sense something and suddenly turned his head. Yu Gui’s whole body shuddered; those eyes could no longer be called human pupils.
The originally clean whites of his eyes had turned bright red, his pupils dilated irregularly, eye sockets sunken, cheekbones protruding, mouth foaming, with blood streaks hanging from his teeth.
Yu Gui felt a chill instantly rising from the soles of her feet to the top of her head. In that moment of her hesitation, the boy arched his upper body in an eerie posture, baring his teeth and lunging towards her throat.
“Watch out!” A strong force came from behind, and Yu Gui was pushed aside, falling to the ground. Lu Qingshi, however, didn’t have time to avoid it, and the boy bit her hand.
“Teacher Lu!”
When the boy was finally pinned down by many hands, Lu Qingshi’s hand was left with two deep rows of teeth marks, bluish-purple and red, swollen high, with blood faintly seeping out.
Lu Qingshi looked at these two rows of teeth marks, slightly furrowing her brow.
Footnotes
- Erlotinib: Sold under the brand name Tarceva among others, is a medication used to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and pancreatic cancer. It is taken by mouth.
- Gemcitabine: Sold under the brand name Gemzar, among others, is a chemotherapy medication used to treat cancers. It is used to treat testicular cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, and bladder cancer. It is administered by intravenous infusion.
- Iron rooster: In Chinese culture, there’s a saying, “an iron rooster won’t lose a feather,” which describes someone who never gives anything away—so stingy that even a metal (iron) rooster wouldn’t shed a feather because it’s not even willing to spare that!
- Jaundice is a medical condition characterized by a yellowish tint to the skin, the whites of the eyes, and sometimes other tissues. This yellowing happens due to a buildup of a substance called bilirubin in the blood. Bilirubin is a yellow compound that forms when red blood cells break down. Normally, it is processed by the liver and excreted, but if there’s a problem with the liver, bile ducts, or red blood cells, bilirubin can accumulate and lead to jaundice.
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