***

7:30 am.

Irene entered the meeting room with a warm greeting, "Good morning, everyone," she said, taking her seat. Eunbi, Joy, and Sana responded with respectful greetings, acknowledging the young professor's presence.

"Let's start our briefing, shall we?" Irene began, taking charge of the discussion. She turned to Joy and inquired, "Joy, what do we have?"

"Today, we're going to conduct a series of tests to assess our patient's condition. From yesterday's observation, Ms. Son's vitals look stable, but her red blood cells are below the normal counts. This may suggest that she's starting to develop anemia due to the cancer," the young doctor explained.

Irene nodded thoughtfully before directing her attention to Eunbi, "Eunbi, what about last night? Is there anything new? How is Ms. Son's condition?"

Eunbi responded, "Ms. Son's vitals showed nothing wrong last night. Her ECG reading is normal, and there is no fever, but she had night sweats when she was asleep."

"Thank you, Eunbi," Irene acknowledged before continuing, "So her vitals are normal, but she's starting to develop anemia and experiencing night sweats. This seems like her cancer is still at stage III, but we won't know for sure until we conduct proper tests."

Determined, Irene stood up, “Okay, We're going to perform CBC and Blood Smear Tests first. After that, we'll proceed with CT and Ultrasound to check her organs, and then do a bone marrow biopsy and aspiration.”

"Joy, go with Sana and prepare for the Bone Marrow Biopsy Procedure," Irene instructed her resident and intern doctor, to which Joy and Sana nodded in acknowledgment. Turning her attention to Eunbi, she continued, "Eunbi, you will go and prepare for Ms. Son's CT and Ultrasound check."

"I'm going to do the CBC and Blood Smear first, and then I’ll decide if we should continue with the other tests today considering Ms. Son's Condition. Does anyone have any questions?" Irene scanned the room, and her team seemed to understand their assignments.

"Great, now let's get to work," Irene said with determination, and her team members nodded, ready to carry out their respective tasks to provide the best care for their patient.

***

The young professor walked down the now familiar corridor of the VVIP ward, a place she never thought she would find herself in. The corridor exuded an air of luxury and exclusivity, befitting its status as a VIP floor. At the end of the corridor, she can see the door to Wendy’s Room. Irene glanced at the Patient Information Board outside the room.

Room 221, VVIP Room

Patient: Son Seungwan

Attending Physician: Junior Professor Irene Bae

Seeing her name listed as the Attending Physician in one of these opulent rooms still felt surreal to Irene. But what puzzled her even more was the patient inside the room. Seungwan, or Wendy as the young novelist prefers to be called, didn’t even know that she would be moved to this room in the first place. Yet, for some reason, the hospital treated her like a very important person.

Don’t be mistaken, Irene doesn’t have anything against Wendy, it’s quite the opposite, in fact, she admires the young novelist, Wendy's resilience in the face of her condition was nothing short of remarkable, and her composed demeanor sometimes made Irene slightly envious. And on top of that, Wendy seems like a genuinely good person.

And her eyes, there was something about the young novelist’s eyes. When they have that conversation yesterday night, Irene clearly remember how her breath hitch the moment their eye locked. The young novelist's eyes held so many emotions, Irene can see fear and sadness, but she can also see a will to live, a glimmer of hope in the young novelist's eyes. For a moment, Irene found herself lost in those depths.

With these thoughts swirling in her mind, Irene took a deep breath and readied herself to enter the room. Whatever emotions she may have felt, her primary focus for today was crystal clear - to assess the young novelist's condition, to determine the extent to which cancer had spread in her body, and to devise a treatment plan that would offer Wendy the best chance at life.

Irene Knock the door a couple of times before opening the door and announcing “Wendy-ssi, can I come in?”.

“of course Dr. Bae, come in” The young novelist answered.

Irene smiled before closing the door slowly and walking toward the young novelist. Irene then proceeds to check the heart rate monitor, trough this monitor, Irene can access and read multiple vital signs and the body condition of the young novelist. The monitor reading came from a smart sensor band in the young novelist's right arm.

“Another routine check-up Dr. Bae?” Wendy asks her.

"Actually, Wendy-ssi, I want to check your vital signs first before proceeding with today's tests, but it seems like your condition is rather stable today, so I think it would be okay," Irene explained to the young novelist.

As Irene observed Wendy, she noticed the young novelist wasn't responding and had closed her eyes. After a moment, Wendy eventually opened her eyes.

“What happened? Are you feeling dizzy?” Irene asks.

“No, sorry, I’m just praying. I don’t know if you believe in higher power but I do, so I prayed” Wendy explained to her.

Irene gives her a small meaningful note, as she understands the sentiment, she also always starts her day to pray, asking for her to be given a chance to save someone's life.

"Wendy-ssi, can we proceed with the tests today? We will start with a Complete Blood Count and Blood Smear test first, followed by a CT Scan and an ultrasound scan to observe your organ condition. Then you will take a bone marrow biopsy and aspiration procedure so we can determine the stage of your cancer. Depending on the results, we might need to conduct additional tests to determine your treatment plan," Irene elaborated.

“And just like I said yesterday Wendy-ssi, I need you to trust me, so I can help you. I will not do the test without your consent. So do you trust me?”

The young novelist becomes silent for a couple of seconds, she closes her eyes again and takes a deep breath before opening her eyes and locking her gaze with the young professor.

“I trust you, Dr. Bae, let’s do the test,” Wendy finally said, her voice soft but hopeful.

***

12 am.

Irene and her team once again gather in the meeting room. Wendy has done all the tests that she needed and now the young novelist is back in her room resting after the Bone Marrow Biopsy and Respiration (BMB/BMA) procedure.

“Joy, have the lab send us the result of Wendy’s BMB/BMA test?”

“Not yet unnie, they say it would take a couple of minutes more before the result is out,” The young doctor tells her.

“Okay then,”, Irene then turned her attention to Eunbi “Eunbi, what about you? Do you have the result from her CT Scan and Ultrasound Scan?”.

“Yes professor, here’s the result”, Eunbi then proceeds to hand her the imagery result of Wendy’s CT and Ultrasound Scan.

Irene studies the image for a couple of minutes before a call ringtone suddenly fills the room. It was Joy’s phone.

“Unnie, it’s the lab” Joy informed the young professor.

“Hello, yes, yes the result for BMB/BMA Test for Patient Son Seungwan, okay thank you” Joy then ended the phone call.

“Unnie, they have sent the result to my email” Joy then proceeds to take the tablet from the table and start to search for the result in her email.

“Ah, here it is” Joy exclaimed, “Unnie, you may want to take a look at this”. Joy then hand out her tablet to the young professor. Irene read the result for a couple of seconds, reading all the data from the test result.

“Okay, team listen, Joy, tell us the BMB/BMA result,” Irene instructs the young doctor.

“Okay unnie” Joy nodded before fiddling with the laptop in front of her, trying to display the data in the projector. After a few seconds, the projector starts to show the result to the whole team

 “As you can see here, Ms. Son’s Lymphocytes count is higher than normal and it’s already infiltrating her Bone Marrow, causing the increase of the Bone Marrow Cellularity. As this test also includes cytogenetics we can also see that there are already some genetic and molecular abnormalities in Ms. Son’s body. Looking at this test result, there is a high chance that the disease progression is getting worse than 2 years ago when Ms. Son has her first chemotherapy procedure.” Joy explained.

“Thank you, Joy, now switch to her CT Scan Imagery, Eunbi what can you tell us from this?” The young professor turns her attention to Eunbi.

“Right, professor, sunbae, as you can that Ms. Son’s Lymph Node is already enlarged, and her organ, primarily her Spleen and Liver has already enlarged. This explains why Ms. Son’s experi