015

Saving Lives, Saving Heart
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"Yeonhee? Are you on your way?"

Yeonhee shakes her head on Yixing's query as if he can see her doing so. "I'm waiting for Baekhyun to pick me up. What's up? Do you want me to bring you anything?"

"No, no, it's not that. Oh Sehun is not responding to the pages, and before I try to reach the chief resident, I kind of need your help just to make sure that I do it right."

"Okay, I'm listening."

Yeonhee puts her smoothies on the coffee table as she seats herself on the couch. She puts the phone on speaker mode just in case Baekhyun leaves her a message while the call is on, and gives Yixing her full attention. He is on the 36-hour shift right now, and tonight looks busy seeing the last time they chatted was about eleven and she hasn't heard anything from him until now.

"I got paged earlier to meet this patient, 60 old year male. He came in with redness surrounding the right foot, and he kind of worried that the antibiotics are not working despite using it for the last 48 hours." Yeonhee hums to respond as he starts, "Before I met him, I happened to be in front of the computer, so I checked on his record, to see that apparently he's been treated by the dermatologist for the past two weeks for cellulitis. And I found this, you know, an extensive list of med conditions which he takes a lot of medications for them."

"What are they?"

"Some of them, histories like hypothyroid, osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and some other things. So I went to see him, seeing if these illnesses are factoring into his current problem. I asked him for any other complaints, he said he had no fever, no fatigue, no unexplainable weight loss... but, he mentioned this one thing that got me a little suspicious. He said that he felt a bit heavy on the chest and SOB more than usual. He also felt pain and discomfort from his right leg and he thought maybe he wasn't sleeping as well because of it."

Listen carefully to Yixing's story, Yeonhee begins to catch the suspicions he is referring to. When she served Sehun on Cardio a few months ago, the main thing he always said to her was; don't ever ignore a chest pain, because it always means something. Coupled with the signs of shortness of breath, it can lead to cardiac disease.

"How's his lungs?" she asks.

"It's crystal clear, no problem. But when I listened to his heart, I heard something that I didn't expect to hear. He was having IIR (irregularly irregular rhythm, where the heart rate is above 100, and doesn't have a constant beat to it.) When I asked if he felt any palpitations in the last few days, he confirmed it." Yixing pauses for a moment to speak with a nurse about some orders that he has made, then he's back on Yeonhee again, "I got him on the ECG, and, tadaa... he has atrial fibrillation with RVR. Check your Kakao I send you the strip,"

Yeonhee checks on the ECG strip that Yixing sent to find it's exactly what he told her about. The patient indeed has ST depression, which the heart isn't getting enough blood and it's suffering right now. Yeonhee has no idea if she has to cry or smile knowing that the patient is apparently suffering from Type 2 Myocardial Infarction due to the massively increased oxygen demand. But the fact that an intern that has discovered all this, it amazes her.

Of course, she won't expect more than what Yixing has done, he's just that observative that it's no wonder he can find a heart disease from a patient who originally came for uncomfortableness on the leg. Like really, she's really proud of him. If only she were there, she herself isn't even sure she would think of getting there and maybe just thinking about taking care of his feet instead.

"And this is where the problem lies. Once I told him about my findings, he, like, flipped out. He came here to have his foot looked at, and he didn't expect to have ischemia instead. I've ordered an IV medication, making sure his rate subsided and the enzymes which were leaking starting to go down, but he refused to get further treatment. Now he demands to see the chief of surgery." he pauses again to take a breath, "See, what if I'm wrong? The nurse just told me that the patient is apparently one of the hospital board members, and if I mess it up, I probably will have to say goodbye to this internship program."

"Yixing..."

"Tell me, Yeonhee," he cuts her, "Did I do the right thing?"

"You are, Yixing, you've done everything you should." she says, "You went through his history before you checked on him, you have excellent observation and superb diagnosis. You'll be fine, you're going nowhere."

She hears him sigh loudly from across the phone, seemingly frustrated by the current situation. She checks the thread message to see if Baekhyun has arrived just to find him saying that he's on his way.

"I won't mess it up, will I?" he asked again, apparently this time to convince himself.

"You won't, I believe in you. You did great. Where's Oh Sehun anyway? How could he not answer the pager? It's not like him."

Yixing sighs again, "I don't know. He was last seen last night, said the night-shift resident he rushed out after getting a call, and since then he couldn't be contacted again. We called his house but he didn't answer. Do you have an idea where he is now?" 

No, she has no idea where Sehun is. He has never been like this before, and this makes her wonder who had called him and what made him rush out of the hospital. She can only hope that Sehun is alright now.

And Yeonhee can only shake her head with a short 'no' as a response, she's about to elaborate the conversation when she sees her cellphone flickering. Baekhyun is calling, probably here now already.

"Alright, see you in a bit," Yixing voices once she tells him about their friend.

"Okay," She ends the call and collects her belongings before she steps out of the house to meet Baekhyun at the parking lot.

Once they arrive at the hospital, Yeonhee intends to see Yixing discuss this, but she finds that he's occupied by the chief of surgery. They look serious talking, apparently, about the case of the earlier patient—who apparently is a board member. He glances at her when he realizes that she's there, but he only raises his hand secretly as a greeting with his eyes still on the chief.

"Keep calling Oh Sehun, tell him to get his down here ASAP," she hears the chief order the nurse from afar, and seeing that it seems their conversation won't be finished anytime soon, she turns around to get his clothes changed in the locker room with his other friends. When Yixing joins them about fifteen minutes later, he doesn't look really happy. He closes his eyes with a loud sigh once he lies on his stomach on the bench near Yeonhee's locker, looking so wasted.

"You're okay, Dude?" Baekhyun seats himself on top of Yixing's and runs his hand on Yixing's back to give him a massage.

"No." he responds weakly, "We got mobs' fight last night, twelve people were seriously injured, three of them needed emergency surgery. I've been suturing all night, my pager went off every five minutes, the guy with appendicitis kept complaining that can't yet pass on gas after the surgery yesterday morning, and Sehun's patient in ICU had a code blue, I barely even slept. I'm dying."

Yeonhee grows a smile on her face, a concern one. To a degree, she can relate to what Yixing is feeling right now. The guy is exhausted, Sehun has pushed him to the limit that she's amazed by how Yixing can still survive with those crazy days he's been living for the past three weeks. She doesn't know what agenda Sehun is planning for Yixing. It feels as if the world is going to end next month, and he spent the last few weeks to teach Yixing all the things he needs to know before the armageddon's happening.

They work every day, there are absolutely no days off even on weekends. He made Yixing read journals, assisted him in every surgery, not to mention all the case studies that he had to do every day. Yixing leaves in the morning, and usually only comes home at two the next morning just to change his clothes, sometimes even sleepover in the hospital because he is too tired to drive home.

Yeonhee knows it well how hard he's been squeezing himself dry all these months. He usually works hard, but he's been extremely worked much harder these days, she bets no one works harder than him in the hospital for the past three weeks.

And Yeonhee has mixed feelings about this, on one hand, she let him overwork himself because this is his choice. He never complained at all, well, he might say several times that he's tired, but that's all. He's busy, but he seems to enjoy it, that's why she never said anything about this. But on the other hand, Yeonhee feels like Yixing works this hard as if he has something to prove. They all know his weaknesses, he needs much more time to get on something, and he spends more time to catch on the material that Sehun has been discussing with him. Yeonhee helps him with them sometimes, just to explain some correlation into details so that he can understand faster why something happens, what causes it, and how they handle it. All the theories.

"You're not dying," Yeonhee says. She slips the scrub shirt down her head, tidies it up then squats in front of him, "Do you want some yogurt?"

Yixing opens his eyes to the question, and as he finds her near, he raises his hand to put it on the side of her face, caressing her cheek.

"I miss you,"

And Yeonhee keeps her smile, she looks up to see Baekhyun rolling his eyes and slowly getting off from Yixing's as if this is his cue to leave, giving them more privacy. Yeonhee rises to get the yogurt with granola and some berries that she made earlier for breakfast from her bag and hands it to Yixing. She leans back in her locker while watching him eat it to his heart content.

"Eat slowly, it's all yours," she tells him then,

Yixing scoffs and starts chuckling, "It's really good," he says. He then spoons one and reaches out to feed her, and Yeonhee leans forward to have it from him. His eyes stay on her all the time while doing that, his intense stare makes her blush again.

This is how their relationship has been for the past weeks.

Yeonhee has no idea how to explain this, but she can't deny that what happened to the other day has more or less brought them much closer than before. Yixing becomes more open in showing his affection, and Yeonhee has to say that she likes it. She loves to have someone openly showing his feelings for her. It's nothing intimate, especially when they're in the hospital. They act as usual; talking to each other, joking around, not trying to hide their feelings but not showing it overtly either. When people ask, Yixing will bluntly tell them that she's adorable and such but never says anything about their relationship.

But Yeonhee doesn't need any labels or things to put on them. It's more personal to her; that she loves how it feels to be acknowledged, that she's important to someone. That she doesn't need to wonder what he thinks, or what he feels about her. Yixing says it, like, he makes sure that she knows, that he likes her, that he loves her smile, that he loves when she runs her hand on his hair as a soothing gesture. She loves the fact that she's special for someone, it makes her happy.

"May I finish this?" Yeonhee shifts her attention back to Yixing, she nods her head as a reply.

She turns around to open her locker again to slip the pens and notes to her chest pocket then hangs the stethoscope around her neck at the same time that her pager goes off. And when she thinks it's only hers, apparently it goes off to everyone's pagers.

"Uh oh, it's ER." Baekhyun voices the same time Yeonhee checks hers. It's indeed ER, and to have the emergency department pages them all in the early morning, then it means something big has just happened.

Yixing finishes his morning meal with another sigh. He puts the bowl into his locker and gulps down the water that Baekhyun gives him before they hurry downstairs to the ER.

"There's an explosion in the iron factory." Hyoyeon informs them as they join the residents in the shift for the briefing. "We got many casualties as well as burn traumas, everyone pair up and get whoever comes. Tag them by the injury. Dr. Kim will be joining us shortly, so no trauma consult, you decide what's best for them."

From a distance they can hear the ambulance sirens approaching, Yeonhee puts on her gloves and finds Jongdae as she's told to pair up with him.

"Do you, by chance, know where Oh Sehun is? Cardio is on uproar with him being MIA," he probes as they're waiting for their patients by the door.

"I don't." she replies to him in short. "Why are you asking me anyway? I'm not his wife."

Jongdae raises his eyebrows and smiles knowingly, "Sehun told me," he says again a few moments later.

"About what?"

"About what you guys are."

"What?" Yeonhee frowns. Now that catches her attention, she never expects that Sehun would actually tell people about his personal life. He even never mentioned anything to her in the past, now she's wondering what Sehun has told him. And she's just about to ask, but an ambulance stops in front of them at the same time. Jongdae moves right away to help the EMS officer pull out the gurney.

Their first patient is a 34-year-old man, coming in an unconscious state with bruising at the anterosuperior iliac spine. Upon physical examination, they find that he has open airways, hypotension (70/30 mmHg), and tachycardia (165 bpm). There are no signs of head or chest trauma and no external bleeding. Jongdae tells her to intubate him and order the nurse for 20 ml/kg of warm saline to stabilize the patient's vitals. The blood pressure levels improve in the next five minutes, they begin observing the abdominal wall distention, tachycardia and the absence of femoral pulses after that.

With another exam, they find a retroperitoneal hematoma near the left common iliac artery by an abdominal ultrasound. Jongdae decides to have an immediate exploratory laparotomy on him.

"Please prepare the OR," he orders the nurse before he turns to

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wow, thank you for the 100 upvotes! It really made my day! Please comment, upvote and recommend this story to your friends if you enjoy this story, I'll appreciate it sooo much! Love <3

Comments

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tonnettie
#1
Chapter 20: Re-reading is so fun! The magic for this story is so strong! You can never just get bored with it.
Athena66
#2
Chapter 20: Dearest each od your stories touches me and warmth me.Amazing since I am re reading all of it...Thank you very much for all the wonderful tales you shares here.❤
amelloo13
#3
Chapter 20: I LOVE IT!! thank you so much for the great stories, i love you
amelloo13
#4
Chapter 20: I LOVE IT!! thank you so much for the great stories, i love you
amelloo13
#5
Chapter 16: OH MY GOD (2)
amelloo13
#6
Chapter 14: OH MY GOD
aleezay #7
Hoping for the best gonna start it today
tonnettie
#8
Chapter 20: Lol I just finished re-reading this a few months back, and now I’m here again very desperate for Yixing fics.
tonnettie
#9
Chapter 20: I really love them! I just had to re-read this ❤️❤️
tonnettie
#10
Chapter 20: I really love them! I just had to re-read this ❤️❤️