Jeong Min-su’s nerves were stretched taut, as if they might snap.
“Ugh, uh… damn, huff, mm.”
“Focus.”
“I-I am.”
“Slowly, a little more….”
Taesu also had every nerve honed to a razor’s edge.
The slightest mistake, and the guidewire would tear through the coronary artery and burst out the other side.
That was the problem.
For an experienced cardiothoracic surgeon, this would take forty minutes.
But Taesu had estimated an hour.
The problem was his hands.
With Caprene’s knowledge in his head, he could find the surgical method with astonishing ease. But his hand skills were far too lacking to put that knowledge into practice.
They had been honed through countless emergencies, but they were not yet at a level that could account for the movement of the heart.
That was an undeniable fact.
Even so, Taesu was working to close that gap, running through mountains and fields in his spare time.
His efforts could not have borne no fruit at all.
Slish. Shk.
Little by little, the guidewire slid inward.
Just a little more.
Taesu’s eyes were wide open, his concentration absolute.
Sweat was already running down his face.
It was proof that tension had been added to the situation.
His grip was beginning to ache slightly from clutching the guidewire as though his life depended on it.
But he could not relax.
If he lost hold of the guidewire, the situation would become impossible to control.
It felt like walking a tightrope.
“Sir, I’m still lacking. But I’ll finish this properly. Please hold on just a little longer.”
He sincerely prayed to the patient.
At that moment, he wanted to draw courage from the patient.
He did not need anyone else’s courage.
The patient.
Only the courage given by the man lying on the operating table could help him.
“Whoo, whoo.”
There was no significant change in the patient’s breathing.
Then it happened.
Twitch. Dududu. Dududu.
A subtle change appeared in the movement of the heart.
A glint flashed in Taesu’s eyes.
This is it.
Sincerity always gets through.
Feeling that once more in his heart, he moved his hands with renewed determination.
The change in the heart appeared on the ECG exactly as it was.
Perhaps that was why Dr. Isakson’s eyebrows twitched slightly.
But regardless, he maintained his silence.
“…….”
Swoosh.
He merely moved his hands little by little, gauging the patient’s vitals and Taesu’s surgical speed.
He had erased his presence to that extent, watching strictly as an observer.
Ten minutes later.
Taesu’s face was drenched in sweat.
Jeong Min-su was no different.
Yet faint smiles appeared on both their faces.
“Done?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
They were overjoyed at having successfully inserted the stent.
But there was still one more.
They had to perform the same procedure once more on the opposite side, and they also had to harvest the graft.
They both knew that all too well.
Leaving that brief joy behind, they began inserting the second stent.
“…….”
“…….”
The operating room fell silent in an instant.
Tap. Tap-tap.
The most dynamic sight was Kim Hyeok-gwon moving back and forth along both sides of the operating table, wiping away the sweat pouring from them.
Another ten minutes passed.
This time, they succeeded as well.
Only then did the silence, in which even the sound of a falling needle would have seemed like thunder, disappear.
“Whoo.”
“Wow, we did it.”
“We’re halfway there. And we need to pick up the pace.”
“Yeah. But where are we getting the graft from?”
When Jeong Min-su asked, Taesu answered simply.
“The thigh.”
“It’s my first time.”
“Is there anything you’ve done before?”
“No, but how am I even doing this?”
It seemed Jeong Min-su had only just realized that.
Taesu raised one corner of his mouth slightly and replied.
“The power of the field.”
“Is everything field medicine?”
“Of course. Now, let’s hurry a little.”
Taesu urged him on so their tension would not drop.
If the surgery so far had been static, things would be different from this point onward.
“Hyeok-gwon, scalpel.”
“Again? Here.”
Clack.
“Min-su, cut.”
“Suction, Bovie ready.”
Jeong Min-su responded vigorously.
With that same feeling, Taesu also moved his scalpel.
Shhk.
As the inner thigh was opened, the same sequence from the earlier thoracotomy was repeated.
But it took far less time.
There was no bone to clear away.
Once the skin was spread wide and fixed in place, the inside of the thigh was exposed in all its starkness.
Muscle, nerves, and blood vessels were intermingled.
Being farther from the heart, there was less vibration as well.
To Taesu and Jeong Min-su, who had just been operating on the heart, it felt as though everything had come to a standstill.
There was no reason to delay.
“From here to here, about three centimeters.”
“I see it.”
“Let’s harvest it. Bulldog first.”
As soon as Taesu requested it, Jeong Min-su spoke as well.
“Gauze.”
“Starting here.”
Kim Hyeok-gwon prioritized the orders of Taesu, the lead surgeon.
It was only natural.
Tap-tap-tap.
Kim Hyeok-gwon’s movements grew busier.
Taesu’s gaze was filled with nothing but the surgery.
This vessel will do.
It was one of the thin branches extending from the femoral artery.
It was not a central vessel, but one frequently used for grafts.
That, too, was something he had learned by peeking into Caprene’s knowledge.
At this moment, Taesu was making use of it not merely tenfold, but a hundredfold. That was why the surgery could proceed so smoothly.
First, he clamped off the vessel with a bulldog clamp.
He could not simply cut it. Separating it from the surrounding muscles came first.
“Metzenbaum baby.”
“Just a moment… here.”
“And DeBakey.”
“This one… should be right.”
Kim Hyeok-gwon seemed briefly confused, but he trusted his own memory.
It was a good choice.
Clack.
It was indeed the DeBakey, a forceps-shaped surgical instrument.
Taesu took it and carefully pressed above and below the vessel.
Once the vessel protruded slightly, he used the Metzenbaum baby to cut it while minimizing damage to the muscle as much as possible.
Snip, snip.
Jeong Min-su’s role was to secure Taesu’s field of vision and hold things in place.
“Like this, here.”
“A little to the side.”
“Yeah, here?”
“Perfect. Keep it there.”
Snip, snip.
After moving his hands several times, Taesu said,
“Min-su, a little lower.”
“This much? Or this much?”
“Mm, mm. That’s it.”
There was never a moment when Taesu’s hands failed to move once he was satisfied with the position.
Jeong Min-su also watched Taesu’s gaze and hands, responding from moment to moment.
This time, Kim Hyeok-gwon spoke less and let his actions take the lead.
Snip, clamp. Swish-swish.
There were only three of them, but the surgery proceeded little by little through their fluid movements.
The graft harvest soon came to an end.
Large and small pieces of muscle were attached around the short length of harvested vessel.
Taesu had dreamed of a clean graft harvest, but the result showed that his precision was still lacking.
Regret filled his face.
“Is this all we could get?”
“I think it looks clean enough.”
“Now we have to connect it. Ah, wait… Isakson.”
At Taesu’s call, Dr. Isakson held up a thumbs-up.
“No problem. Continue.”
“Thank you.”
After a brief greeting, Taesu returned to the heart.
“Min-su, can you finish up over there?”
“Yeah, I can close it.”
“Then start with that. Let’s save time.”
“Got it.”
Jeong Min-su answered immediately.
He gave off an impression that was both proactive and passive at the same time.
For Taesu, that was preferable right now.
Before they knew it, they were back at the heart.
All that remained was to connect the two ends and redirect the blood flow.
“Needle holder. Smallest needle, thinnest thread.”
“Then… this one. Here.”
Clack.
Kim Hyeok-gwon selected one of several sutures, secured it in the needle holder, and handed it over.
Taesu accepted it and gave a faint nod.
“Beginning angiostomy.”
Holding the needle holder and Mixter in both hands, Taesu carefully began the vascular anastomosis.
The heart continued moving.
The surgery itself was simple, but that movement was the greatest obstacle.
Dududu.
It was rhythmic, but so fast that simply inserting the suture needle at the right moment was a problem.
It seemed each individual stitch would take an eternity.
A sidelong glance.
Taesu checked the time.
Nearly forty minutes had already passed since the surgery began.
That passage of time pressed down on him, tightening around him little by little.
If only the heart would beat a little more slowly, he could work much faster.
Rather than keeping the thought to himself, Taesu asked Dr. Isakson.
“Please slow the pulse a little.”
“It’s already been lowered. It can’t be reduced any further.”
“Yes.”
After hearing the bad news, Taesu looked back at the heart.
Dududu.
This was the pulse after it had been lowered?
He found it somewhat difficult to understand.
Then that meant the heart was in extremely poor condition, and Dr. Isakson was barely keeping it from failing.
That differed slightly from Caprene’s knowledge.
There was no time to consider why.
He immediately positioned the vessel with the Mixter and moved with the needle holder.
Once, twice….
He failed more often than he succeeded.
As time passed and his concentration waned, the proportion of failures grew higher.
He was impatient by nature, and things were not proceeding as he wanted.
Press. Press.
He pressed and pressed again.
He could not vent his anger on the patient.
So he endured, and endured again.
But Taesu’s fiery temper could not be restrained by patience alone.
In the end, unable to overcome his frustration, Taesu’s face twisted fiercely.
“Damn it.”
Thud.
Taesu struck the heart with the back of his hand.
Jeong Min-su and Kim Hyeok-gwon were simultaneously horrified at the sight.
“You crazy bastard!”
“What are you doing?”
It was unquestionably an irrational act.
Yet the result manifested as a strange phenomenon.
Dududu. Thump-thump, thump-thump.
The heart’s beating slowed.
At this rate, the anastomosis would not be difficult.
Having judged that, Taesu moved his hands.
Swish, snip.
“Mm. Done.”
Satisfied with the smoothly increasing surgical speed, he moved his hands more quickly.
Striking the heart had been an action based squarely on Caprene’s knowledge.
There were several restrictions, but this patient met those conditions.
Shock therapy.
It was a broad term, but that was what it amounted to.
To others, it might have seemed absurd to control the heart with brute force, but the heart’s movement was proving it right before their eyes.
Taesu continued the anastomosis with a much more relaxed touch.
A little more time passed.
Clamp, clamp.
The anastomosis was nearly complete.
With Jeong Min-su’s help, who had joined midway through, they had been able to proceed a little faster.
At last, they had reached the final stitch.
“Cut.”
“Cut.”
“Going in with the suture.”
Snip.
His speed in tying the knot was swift and precise—truly outstanding.
Now came the final step.
Gulp.
A slight tension filled the air.