Cold
Viral Myocarditis
In the winter park, the lake surface was frozen, and the plants and trees were without their former lushness, with white snow weighing down on the branches.
At the hospital, the daily routine required walking at least 10,000 steps.
Thus, many people, unwilling to walk more after work, preferred indoor exercises such as badminton, tennis, and basketball.
Jian Qing indeed had little interest in strolling through the park, but after sitting on a bench for half an hour, listening to the blaring square dance music through her earbuds, she couldn’t help but open her phone to search for something worth seeing in Bailu Park, planning to walk around with Lu Yinxi.
Lu Yinxi’s fingers tapped rhythmically on her knee to the beat of the square dance music, her gaze always scanning the distance.
She feared Jian Qing would be bored and tried to start a conversation: “In the hospital, you taught me how to observe diseases. Now I’ll teach you how our performance major conducts fieldwork.”
Actors’ fieldwork involves observing various characters and their reactions to different situations.
Art comes from life. Only by thoroughly understanding the habits and behaviors of various characters can actors portray roles realistically.
“Look at that little girl skating on the ice over there, wearing a red down jacket. Her movements are clumsy. If she falls, she’ll definitely cry. Her mother, in the white coat, is constantly teaching the younger sister, focusing all her attention on her. The little girl cries to attract her mother’s attention.”
Jian Qing looked up and saw the mother bending down to support the little girl, terrified of her getting hurt. The older girl, gripping the railings, moved slowly forward, turning her head every so often to check on her mother and sister, seemingly wanting to know if her mother was paying attention to her.
Jian Qing watched intently, then suddenly lowered her gaze, interlaced her fingers, and after a slight quiver of her long lashes, looked away.
Lu Yinxi was slightly startled, then raised her camera to capture Jian Qing’s profile.
It was a rare sight to see her showing a trace of melancholy.
Was it because of that family of three?
Lu Yinxi looked up and saw the older girl in the red jacket suddenly fall heavily to the ground, and then crying loudly after glancing at her mother.
The mother quickly ran over with the little sister in her arms, squatted down, helped the older sister up, and consoled her gently. The little sister grabbed her older sister’s hand, blew on it, and the older sister gradually stopped crying.
Lu Yinxi looked away and said softly, “An Emperor loves his eldest son, and commoners love their youngest child.”
Ordinary families tend to favor the younger children.
Jian Qing responded with a hum, not saying much.
Lu Yinxi resumed looking into the distance, as if trying to find something.
After a while, she locked her gaze on a young woman in a black tracksuit and pointed: “That woman in the black tracksuit, I think she’s got a cold. She’s been coughing and was just pounding her chest.”
Jian Qing frowned slightly: “Why is she jogging with a cold?”
“Maybe she thinks sweating it out will help.” Lu Yinxi stood up.
Some people believe that sweating can help cure colds and fevers, so they engage in heavy exercise. This is actually a misconception. Sweating is a sign of recovery from a cold or fever, not the cause. Exercise during a cold can lead to excessive exhaustion and further weaken the immune system.
Seeing her stand up, Jian Qing looked puzzled: “Do you know her?”
“No, but she seems very unwell. Let’s go over and—”
Before she could finish, the young woman in the black tracksuit suddenly lost balance and fell forward with a thud.
Jian Qing, nearly instinctively, stood up and ran over.
Lu Yinxi followed closely behind.
People in the park quickly gathered around—
“What happened to this girl? Why did she suddenly collapse?”
“Don’t know. She was just jogging…”
“Should we lift her up and pinch her philtrum (the vertical groove between the base of the nose and the border of the upper lip)?”
“Call 120 and send her to the First Affiliated Hospital!”
……
“Make way! I’m a doctor from the First Affiliated Hospital.” Jian Qing ran over, identified herself, pushed through the crowd, knelt down, and turned the young woman over, tapping her shoulder and calling out to her.
The young woman’s face was down, her forehead was bruised and bleeding, her complexion pale, pupils dilated, body cold, with no breathing or heartbeat.
Encountering an emergency outside the hospital for the first time, Lu Yinxi felt dizzy, her heart pounding. She knelt down, trembling as she pulled out tissues to wipe the young woman’s blood.
After confirming no breathing, unconsciousness, and no carotid pulse, Jian Qing knelt and began CPR, calmly instructing: “Lu Yinxi, call 120, keep her phone handy, and try to contact her family.”
Directing while performing quick rhythmic chest compressions at the center of her chest.
Being called by her full name for the first time, Lu Yinxi reflexively pulled out her phone to dial 120 and reported the situation.
Jian Qing finished the compressions, lifted the patient’s chin, checked for oral obstructions, preparing for artificial respiration. Lu Yinxi quickly took out a pack of gauze from her pocket, unwrapped it, and handed it over.
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It felt as if it had been prepared in advance.
Jian Qing glanced hastily at Lu Yinxi without asking, and swiftly administered artificial respiration.
After exhalation, the young woman’s chest rose.
Lu Yinxi picked up the woman’s phone that had fallen out and tried to unlock it.
It had a lock screen code, so she tried fingerprint unlocking using the woman’s right hand.
The 120 dispatcher, having received the call, immediately dispatched an emergency vehicle from the nearest First Affiliated Hospital.
The golden rescue time for cardiac arrest is only 4 minutes. Every delay of 1 minute decreases the survival rate by 10%. Beyond 4 to 6 minutes, there will be permanent brain damage, and after 10 minutes, brain death is irreversible.
Lu Yinxi unlocked the phone and contacted the young woman’s mother, inquiring about her medical history, recent health conditions, and any allergies, informing her to rush to the First Affiliated Hospital emergency department.
She then reported the situation to Jian Qing.
Jian Qing, kneeling to perform CPR, was already sweating from the tip of her nose after a while.
Rescue is not only a technical job but also a physically demanding one.
To ensure effective CPR, the compression rate must be at least one hundred beats per minute. Usually, after less than three minutes of compressions, rescuers are drenched in sweat.
Lu Yinxi checked the time on her phone to record the timing.
CPR started at 6:28 PM, and now it was 6:32 PM.
Four minutes had passed.
To the naked eye, the young woman showed no signs of waking up.
Time passed second by second, the square dance music had stopped, and the crowd around them grew larger and larger.
“Can she be saved?”
“She looks so young.”
“The two girls are also doctors from the First Affiliated Hospital; they should be able to save her.”
……
Actually, this wasn’t Lu Yinxi’s first encounter with an emergency rescue. In the hospital, she would typically avoid these situations, giving her place to professional healthcare teams and sometimes watching from afar. Now, being close to the action outdoors, with a human life at stake, her mental pressure and heart rate skyrocketed.
Calm down, calm down…
With Dr. Jian here, she can be saved…
She saw Jian Qing sweating from her forehead and quickly reached to wipe it off, trying to maintain composure and asked: “Do you want me to take over compressions?”
CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) is a basic operation. During her freshman year, the Red Cross Society at her medical school organized training and assessments for all new students.
Every medical student learns this skill during their studies.
During her hospital internship, Lu Yinxi practiced on mannequins, and on rare occasions on set, she had performed CPR on colleagues who experienced sudden cardiac arrest.
She was not without experience.
But Jian Qing refused to let her take over, continuing with chest compressions and artificial respiration, gasping while saying: “Go meet the ambulance at the park entrance, it should arrive soon from our hospital…”
Without hesitation, Lu Yinxi stood up and ran to the park entrance to wait.
She didn’t have much emergency rescue experience, but her role was to stay calm, not disrupt the rescue effort, and follow orders.
At 6:42 PM, the First Affiliated Hospital ambulance arrived at Bailu Park.
Lu Yinxi greeted the ambulance, identified herself, and detailed the patient’s situation: “I’m an intern from the oncology department at the First Affiliated Hospital. The doctor performing CPR is the associate chief physician from Oncology Unit Two. The patient is a young woman in her twenties who collapsed during a run at 6:27 PM due to unknown reasons, experienced cardiac arrest, and CPR was initiated at 6:28 PM, but she has yet to regain consciousness. We reached her family, who reported no history of heart or brain diseases, no chronic illnesses, and no allergies, but she had been experiencing a lingering cold and cough for two weeks.”
Hearing this, the emergency personnel didn’t doubt her words, swiftly disembarked, and lifted the young woman onto the vehicle. Jian Qing and Lu Yinxi followed her into the ambulance.
The vehicle moved swiftly through the bustling streets.
Inside were a young male doctor and a young female nurse.
Few in the hospital didn’t recognize Jian Qing. Upon seeing her, the emergency personnel greeted her with surprise before taking over chest compressions to prevent her from becoming too exhausted.
The emergency nurse skillfully set up cardiac monitoring, initiated an IV line, and administered adrenaline.
Jian Qing, having performed over ten minutes of compressions, was drenched in sweat, breathing heavily, her chest heaving, but she didn’t relax, and took over the breathing bag for assisted ventilation while observing the monitoring indicators.
The ECG was not a flat line; the patient should have regained a faint heartbeat a few minutes ago.
The CPR was effective; the patient was no longer in cardiac arrest.
Lu Yinxi gave a faint smile and glanced at Jian Qing.
Jian Qing didn’t look at her, instead, her eyes fixed on the monitor.
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On the monitor, the patient’s blood pressure kept dropping, the QRS waves of the ECG disappeared, showing irregular ventricular fibrillation.
Indicating heart rhythm disturbances – ventricular fibrillation.
—Meaning the patient was not out of danger.
Jian Qing instructed: “Administer two more doses of adrenaline, prepare for defibrillation, Lu Yinxi, take the breathing bag.”
The manual breathing bag replaces mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, covering the mouth and nose to provide artificial ventilation easily.
It wasn’t difficult to operate; Lu Yinxi took over, imitating Jian Qing’s pressing rhythmically.
The nurse administered the medication, cut open the young woman’s clothes, and Jian Qing fetched the AED machine, placed the electrode pads, applied conductive gel, and after confirming VF (ventricular fibrillation), began charging: “Clear.”
The male doctor doing chest compressions stepped back, Jian Qing applied the electrode pads, delivered the shock, restoring normal sinus rhythm.
“Continue compressions.”
A minute later, VF reappeared.
A second defibrillation followed.
Compressions, defibrillation, medication.
Compress, defibrillate, medicate.
The cycle repeated…
Thankfully, the hospital was nearby. In less than ten minutes, the ambulance arrived at the First Affiliated Hospital of Jiangzhou’s emergency department.
Lu Yinxi couldn’t enter the resuscitation room. After helping carry the patient in, she withdrew, making way for the rescuers.
The ER team immediately mobilized.
A ponytailed deputy chief of the emergency department, Yan Miaomiao, rushed into the resuscitation room, spotting Jian Qing, and excitedly shouted: “Old classmate, stay and help me!”
With fewer staff during off-hours, every available hand was welcome, especially a free resource like Jian Qing.
Jian Qing, nearly exhausted from compressions, replied: “No more talking. I suspect viral myocarditis caused cardiogenic shock. Arrange exams, prepare for intubation, and call the ECMO team from cardiology and critical care.”
At this time, she no longer instructed the nurse to administer medication, and instead delegated the decision on medication to the primary care physician, Dr. Yan Miaomiao.
With her stomach churning, Lu Yinxi rushed to the restroom, vomiting all the Roujiamo she ate.
Hopefully, the young woman would pull through…
Otherwise, she would’ve suffered all this for nothing…
The young woman’s phone was still on her, and she didn’t dare leave the emergency area.
After rinsing her mouth with mineral water, she went to the small store on the basement level to buy mouthwash and hurried back to the emergency area, waiting for Jian Qing to come out and for the young woman’s family to arrive.
The emergency department is regarded as the bottom of the department hierarchy: it has the highest patient flow in the entire hospital, is the most chaotic, and is also the most prone to doctor-patient disputes.
At nearly 7 PM, the waiting area was still packed, with no empty seats.
Lu Yinxi stood by the wall, listening to the noisy surroundings and looking at the faces—some solemn, some exhausted, some sickly. For a moment, she felt a bit disoriented.
The noise of the virtual world gradually overlapped with the scenes of the real world.
There was a patient in the waiting area who had been poisoned by wild mushrooms and was hallucinating. Dressed in black, he squatted on the ground, thinking he was a poisonous mushroom, and shouted when people approached, “Don’t pick me! I’m poisonous and don’t taste good!”
There was a burly man who had gotten drunk and been in a fight. His face was bruised, and he reeked of alcohol. People automatically stayed a meter away from him. When a brave soul approached and asked what happened, it turned out he had fought with his friends over who would pay the bill after drinking.
There was a young man who, not believing in evil, insisted on putting a light bulb in his mouth. Now his mouth was open but he couldn’t spit out the bulb, and the tears on his face were from the water in his brain at the time.
A group of delinquent girls brought their bloodied leader to get stitches. Spotting Lu Yinxi in the corner, the leader whistled lazily, then consulted with her friends. They looked at Lu Yinxi and started singing in unison, “Look over here, girl across the way, look over here! The show here is fascinating, don’t pretend to ignore us…”
Lu Yinxi rolled her eyes at them.
A young nurse at the nurse’s station stood up and shouted with her hands on her hips, “Don’t make a racket in the hospital! If you keep making trouble, I’ll call security!”
The delinquent girls giggled but then also quieted down like mushrooms.
Ten minutes later, the young woman’s parents rushed into the emergency department, shouting, “Beibei! Where’s our Beibei?”
Recognizing the name from the original book, Lu Yinxi quickly ran over with the young woman’s phone, “Uncle, Auntie, she’s in the emergency room, don’t worry!”
She handed the phone to the middle-aged couple to confirm their identity.
The middle-aged woman held her hand, tears streaming down her face, “Young lady, did you save our Beibei? I’ll kowtow to you to thank you—”
She was about to kneel.
Lu Yinqi quickly supported her, “Auntie, no need to thank me! I just happened to be passing by; it was a doctor from the First Affiliated Hospital who saved her. She’s still being resuscitated in the emergency room!”
She helped the middle-aged couple find a seat, then ran to the resuscitation room to inform the staff that the young woman’s family had arrived.
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Yan Miaomiao immediately assigned an intern doctor to follow Lu Yinxi out to talk to the family and inform them of the critical condition.
After the intern confirmed the identity of the family, he told them: “Your daughter has viral myocarditis which has caused cardiogenic shock. Her condition is quite severe. Our team of specialists is still trying to save her, and she might need to be moved to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for ECMO treatment soon.”
Hearing that their daughter would need to be admitted to the ICU, the middle-aged woman nearly fainted, her eyes rolling back: “My Beibei just had a little cold! How did it turn into viral something myocarditis? And now she needs to be in the ICU?”
Lu Yinxi and the middle-aged man supported her.
The middle-aged man said: “Don’t worry! Isn’t that child Chu Yan also working in this hospital? I’ll call him and have him come over!”
By the time the male lead of this world rushed over from home, half an hour had already passed.
Upon his arrival, he first calmed the emotions of the two middle-aged people, then entered the emergency room and joined the rescue efforts.
From 6:28 PM, the rescue continued until 9 PM. Nearly three hours of efforts by more than ten doctors eventually got the patient out of danger.
When Jian Qing took off her white coat and exited the emergency room, she was drenched in sweat, her steps unsteady, and her hands slightly trembling.
Today, she had gone through two high-intensity rescue operations, one at noon and one in the evening. Now, she felt that she could hardly lift her arms.
Lu Yinxi hurried over to support her, handing her a bottle of drink to rehydrate.
Jian Qing leaned most of her weight on Lu Yinxi, who leaned against the wall, supporting her waist and gently wiping the sweat from her cheeks with a tissue.
Jian Qing unscrewed the drink, took a few sips slowly, then looked at Lu Yinxi and asked: “You knew this all along, didn’t you?”
The author has something to say:
Lu Yinxi (having read the original story) [handing a Roujiamo]: “Eat well, you’ll work better on a full stomach.”
Jian Qing (the rescue tool): “…”
