Nineteenth Century Medical Guide

Chapter 494, Section 490: The Hardliners
Most viewers were concerned with Anders' bullfighting skills and whether he could return to the bullring after his treatment and recovery. In their eyes, receiving treatment seemed like a matter of course, since no one would associate fear with a bullfighter who dared to face the bull's horns.

Anders insisted that he was fine and did not want to undergo open abdominal surgery for no reason, so Kavi needed to give an undeniable reason.

Abdominal paracentesis is the most direct evidence. The procedure is simple and minimally invasive. A small hole is made in the abdomen with a needle, and after the procedure, a gauze pad is applied or an IV is inserted. The wound then heals on its own.

Kavi had seen many patients who were afraid of surgery eventually undergo the procedure in front of that tube of non-clotting blood. Considering Anders' love for bullfighting and his dedication of sixteen years of his life, surely he could accept such a simple examination in order to return to the sandy bullring.

Surprisingly, the bullfighter who had just been hailed as a hero by the people of San Sebastián still refused Cavie's diagnosis.

Such a die-hard is one of the best in Carver's long clinical career.

"To be honest, I really don't like hospitals! I really don't like them! The scalpels, needles, clanging instruments, and the uniforms you wear, the mattresses, the windows, the curtains—ugh, I feel uncomfortable no matter what I see in the hospital! After seeing so much, my back gets cold and my hands and feet tremble."

As he spoke, he couldn't help glancing at these things, quickly averting his gaze each time they met. His fingers began to tremble, then his arms, his torso, and his face, whether from blood loss or fear, had become completely bloodless.

"I can't take it anymore, I have to leave now! I need to get out of here, please, Dr. Kavi, for God's sake, let me go!"

Anders was indeed very scared. As soon as he finished speaking, he endured the pain, got out of bed, and prepared to leave.

"Wait, don't move!"

Bergett and Antonio tried to stop him, but he forcefully shook them off: "Don't stop me, I'm leaving now!!!"

"I understand, we really understand how you feel right now."

"No, you don't understand. You're surgeons. All you want to do is cut open my stomach and try to remove something from my body."

Anders pushed aside the first two, but ultimately couldn't stop the third and was forced to sit back down.

Helplessness and despair were pressing against his throat, like a flood about to burst its banks, but he managed to steady himself at the last moment: "I have no other requests, I just want to go back and lie in bed quietly to rest, can't you even grant me that request???"

A slightly tearful male voice drifted through the cold operating room, and fear was written all over the matador's face.

Antonio and his assistant had already softened their stance. If they were in the patient's shoes, seeing the patient pleading so desperately, they might not have even considered surgery in the first place. After all, in the mid-to-late 19th century, open surgery itself carried enormous risks.

So when Kavi's attitude softened and he stopped mentioning surgery, they really thought he would choose conservative treatment.

"I can avoid talking about surgery, but you need to understand one thing: not having surgery doesn't mean your injuries aren't serious. You were gored twice by the bull's horns, and its hooves trampled your thighs and body. In any case, as is customary, you must stay in the hospital for observation overnight."

"Just one night of observation? Nothing else? Will there be any other tests done at the last minute? I don't want to do anything, and I can't even touch my stomach!"

"Just observe."

"Well," Anders hesitated, glancing around before finally deciding he had no other choice, "then let's just observe."

Kavi's face suddenly lit up with a smile, and he began to comfort her, "You've said so much, you must be thirsty, right?"

"Uh, I am indeed quite thirsty; my lips are practically dry."

"What are you all standing there for? Hurry up and pour Mr. Matador a glass of water."

In this surgical theater spanning hundreds of square meters, only Bergett knew that Kavi would never give up, because he was also an extremely stubborn die-hard when it came to saving lives.

So when Cavie said he wanted to get some water and turned to give him a wink, Bergett immediately understood and pulled Antonio to the control panel in the corner, saying, "Hurry up and get some water."

Antonio was stunned and didn't understand. After hearing Bergette's muttering, he nodded repeatedly and then quietly took a small bottle of powder from the cabinet and poured it into a cup.

Kavi pulled up a stool and sat down next to him, telling the others to disperse, and started chatting with him casually: "By the way, I'm a little curious, you're so afraid of hospitals, didn't you go to the hospital when you were injured before?"

"Yes, of course I'll go. I need to get it treated properly, and once I'm done, I'll leave. I won't stay any longer. Unlike Hardy, who's much better at this than me, he's always cheerful even when he's seriously injured, and he can stay in the hospital for a month or two!"

While everyone else was still thinking in terms of medical matters and their attention was focused on the length of hospital stay, only Kavi was concerned with the name: "Hadi? Who is Hardy?"

"Oh, the guy who came with me earlier."

"Ok?"

"That Spurs player, the one who got knocked down right at the beginning, you said he had a pneumothorax and needed some kind of puncture treatment."

“Oh, it’s him.” Kavi handed the water glass to Anders. “Isn’t his name Hugo?”

"Spanish names are long, and he's usually registered as Rafael Hugo, but privately we all like to call him Hadi, which is his mother's surname. His mother is Greek, and in Greece, Hadi means brave and hardworking, so..."

Anders looked up and gulped down the water, then licked his chapped lips. "This water tastes weird, but oh well, as long as it quenches my thirst, I'll have another cup."

"You've had a long day, take a rest first."

Kavi wanted to leave but couldn't because Anders held him back tightly: "I can't stay in the hospital alone, especially here. Why don't you take me with you and take me back to the hotel?"

"You rest, we'll go check on that Hardy, we'll be right back."

"no!"

Perhaps the chills from fear had eased the pain somewhat, or perhaps Kavi's casual conversation had made Anders more relaxed. He spoke more and more fluently, even gently touching his stomach, feeling that everything was moving in a positive direction.

"Look, I'm fine now. My stomach doesn't hurt as much anymore. I'll go out for some fresh air and then go back to sleep. I'll be better when I wake up. I'm not questioning you, Dr. Kavi, but people are strange like that. Even a genius like you can be wrong sometimes. Like my performance in the square just now, at first glance, that black bull didn't look like much. It looked so clumsy standing there, with short, blunt horns. But after getting to know it, I realized it was no pushover. Hardy and I both suffered losses."
"Oh, right, I promised you I'd observe you. I've been lying here for half an hour. Half an hour should be enough for you to observe me, right? I want to go back to sleep, really!"

He talked more and more, and the topic circled back to the core.

Seeing that he was about to get up again, Antonio quickly stepped forward to stop him, but he failed and was scolded: "You wouldn't let me leave earlier, and now that you've been examined, you still won't let me leave? My stomach doesn't hurt much anymore, can't I go home?"

"Okay, I get it."

Kavi gently pressed down on his shoulder, pushing him back onto the bed, and lightly placed his other hand on his wrist: "Let me check your heart rate first, don't rush."

As he explained, he couldn't help but glance back at Bergett, his face full of question marks: (Was the portion just right?)
Bergett stood behind Antonio, looking at the lively Anders with some doubt, but still nodded silently: (No problem.)

Kavi shrugged his left hand: (Why didn't he react at all after drinking it?)
Bergert secretly picked up the medicine bottle from earlier, sniffed it, and then shrugged: (I don't know either.)

"How are you? Am I alright?"

After the initial excitement, Anders felt unwell. He wanted to lie down but was afraid of the pain, so he could only support himself on the mattress, sitting awkwardly at an angle, muttering under his breath, "Ugh, it's all that brat Gallardo's fault. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have been hit so badly."

Kavi hoped everything was alright, but his heart rate was already around 120, his systolic blood pressure was likely fluctuating around 60, and his diastolic blood pressure was even higher. He was becoming agitated, thirsty, and dizzy. Considering the previous injury and the signs found on his abdomen, it was almost certain that he was in hemorrhagic shock.

He originally intended to calm Anders down with chloral hydrate first, which would greatly reduce the difficulty of putting on the ether mask even if Anders couldn't sleep.

However, after more than ten minutes, chloral hydrate failed to take effect, and the vital signs changed first, forcing Kavi to change his strategy.

He didn't want to use force, but opportunities are fleeting. The blood loss wasn't too severe yet, and there was still a chance for surgery to repair it. If he waited until the man went into shock and completely passed out before taking action, he probably wouldn't be so confident.

After all, this is a hospital in a small town, not the Municipal General Hospital and the Chief Palace Hospital that had undergone transformation and training in Kavi. There is a big difference in the level of preoperative preparation and the people involved in the surgery.

"I'm still thirsty, give me another glass of water. Didn't I just say that, little brother standing at the back? Did you hear me?"

"I can't give you any more. The little bit of water I gave you earlier violated the anesthesia regulations."

"Oh, I see." Anders wasn't feeling well, but his mind was still clear. He felt that something was off about what was being said. "Wait, Dr. Kavi, didn't you just say that we didn't need surgery? Why are we still using anesthesia?"

Kavi let out a long sigh, looked around at the wounds all over his body, and laid his cards on the table: "Mr. Anders, you can't leave. The surgery is definitely going to happen. You have no choice."

"Huh? You're lying to me?"

“For the sake of your wife and children, you must recover your health as soon as possible.” Bergert took out the wallet he had taken from Anders and pulled out a family photo. “What a wonderful family. They can’t live without you, just like the Spanish bullring can’t live without you.”

Anders was bewildered, having never seen such an unreasonable doctor before: "Didn't you say that all my personal belongings were sent to the church and were being kept by the priest?"

"Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. We wouldn't have done this if you hadn't been so resistant to surgery. Don't move yet, let me do a check-up."

Anders was pushed onto the bed by Kavi, clutching his stomach and afraid to move: "Examination? What examination?"

"do not move!"

Kavi found a wound on his lower back that hadn't completely stopped bleeding, pinched it hard to draw out some blood, and had Bergett remove it with a slide. Then, before Anders could even catch his breath, he took the ether mask Antonio handed him: "Someone, hold him down, especially his face."

"You...you want..." Several fingers altered Anders's mouth shape, making his Spanish sound different, "Want to do mua???"

"Sleep well, brave bullfighter, everything will be alright when you wake up."

"No!! Wuuummmm"

Compared to the intense scenes of surgery, the surgical ward is remarkably quiet.

At first, Ian didn't think Cavi was worth 5000 francs. Even if he was truly a genius, better than other French surgeons, and had even operated on Nathan, that was in Paris. France is France, and Spain is Spain; here, he'd be worth at most 1000 francs.

Therefore, his quoted price of 500 left ample room for price increases.

Now that this letter is available, anyone with it is worth 5000 francs. The mere fact that it "helps the new king ascend the throne" is enough to make many wealthy people eager to open their wallets. Add to that his surgical skills, which are beyond the comprehension of common sense, and it's difficult to measure his worth in monetary terms.

It's an honor for them to have Kavi perform the surgery; Ian should be happy.

The crux of the problem is that this was an empty promise from the very beginning. How much was given after the treatment was completed depended entirely on the mayor's whim. This was true of the original 500 francs, and it was also true of the 5000 francs that came with the new king's name; the fragmented Spanish Empire had its own unique circumstances.

So for Ian, producing this letter wasn't a good thing, and might even have been a bad thing. If he had seen the letter at the bullring, there probably wouldn't have been any further developments.

Fortunately, a single sentence from Kavi led to the transfer of the debt, and the 5000 francs ended up in Alvaro's hands, which created room for further disputes.

Unlike the free and independent mayor, Alvaro maintained the most basic respect for the new king. When Ian handed over the IOU, he didn't stop him, letting the young secretary leave: "Leaving already? Not waiting for Mr. Anders' surgery to finish?"

“What good will it do me to stay here? If even Dr. Kavi can’t cure him, even God won’t help.” Ian walked toward the front door. “You know, I have to go to that hospital too.”

Alvaro stared at the bare 5000 francs on the IOU—aside from his signature, there wasn't even a repayment deadline—and still smiled, a cold smile. He crumpled the IOU into a ball and stuffed it into his pocket, then pulled out his pocket watch and suddenly asked the nurse beside him, "What time do the postmen to Madrid usually arrive?"

"Around two or three o'clock, maybe four o'clock, it's not fixed."

“Time is a bit tight, get me some paper and pen.” Alvaro hesitated for a moment, then called to the nurse who was rummaging through drawers, “Never mind, I have letter paper in my office. When I see the postman later, I’ll ask him to wait a bit; I have a letter to deliver to Madrid.”

"Ok."