After being separated from my family, I became a darling of the military region thanks to my medical

The child was too thin. His skeletal body was slumped in a thick, military-green quilt, his entire body displaying a purplish-blue hue characteristic of someone in a state of near-death due to oxygen deprivation.

The boy's lips were as black as if they had been coated with ink, and the tips of his fingers were swollen into extremely typical clubbed fingers. Due to the exhaustion of the journey, the child didn't even have the strength to cry, only the weak and rapid rise and fall of his chest, accompanied by a wheezing sound like a broken bellows in his throat.

Liu Jianmin's eyes reddened, and he quickly stepped forward to feel the child's pulse.

"Everyone, step back and don't block the passage."

A clear, cool voice came from behind the crowd. The experts spontaneously stepped aside, making way for a wide passage.

Wearing a neat white coat and holding a stethoscope, Ye Zhen strode to the stretcher. She ignored the reporters' flashing cameras and the lengthy handover report from the accompanying Air Force medic, and directly placed her hand on the child's carotid artery.

The pulse was extremely weak.

She pressed the cold chest piece of the stethoscope against the child's left sternal border. The murmur that entered her ears was extremely harsh and loud, accompanied by obvious tremor. Worse still, the second heart sound from the pulmonary valve, which should have been present, was completely absent.

This means that the right ventricular outflow tract is almost completely blocked, and blood cannot be pumped into the lungs for oxygen exchange.

"Send it to Operating Room Number One." Ye Zhen stood up, hung her stethoscope back around her neck, and gave the order crisply and decisively, "Establish two intravenous lines, push the gurney in directly, and avoid any bumps along the way."

The stretcher wheels made a rapid screeching sound on the terrazzo floor.

Outside operating room number one, more than twenty provincial chief physicians quickly changed into scrubs, put on masks and caps. Since not all of them could go on the operating table, Zhou Hai had two rows of long benches placed in a corner of the operating room. These old men, who usually needed others to serve them tea and water wherever they went, now obediently squeezed onto the benches, holding their breath and staring intently at the operating table.

The atmosphere around the operating table was extremely tense.

Dr. Zhang, the head of the anesthesiology department, held a mask, his palms drenched in sweat. The most dangerous time for children with severe Tetralogy of Fallot is during the anesthesia induction period. Once the medication causes peripheral vasodilation, the blood that the right ventricle can't expel will flow further back into the systemic circulation, instantly causing hypoxia, and the child could die before the first incision is even made on the operating table.

"Director Zhang, abandon thiopental sodium." Ye Zhen stood by the sink washing her hands, her back to the operating table, and gave the plan. "Use ketamine for basic anesthesia, combined with a low dose of fentanyl to maintain heart rate. Pay attention to ventilation; the partial pressure of carbon dioxide must be kept below 35 mmHg."

Director Zhang wiped the sweat from his brow and carried out the order accordingly.

As the medication was administered intravenously, the child's tense muscles gradually relaxed. The endotracheal tube was accurately inserted into the glottis and connected to the ventilator. The blood oxygen saturation on the monitor was barely maintained at 60%.

Ye Zhen walked backwards into the operating room. The circulating nurse quickly helped her put on a sterile surgical gown and sterile gloves.

She took the surgical position, received the iodine-soaked ovum forceps from the scrub nurse, and disinfected the area from the child's jaw down to the mid-thigh. She then laid out sterile drapes to expose the sternal region.

"Scalpel".

Ye Zhen extended her right hand. The gleaming No. 20 blade slammed into her palm.

She lowered her head and exerted force with her wrist. The blade cut along the midline of the sternum, slicing through the skin and subcutaneous tissue. Bleeding was minimal, and the incision was straight as a line.

"Chainsaw."

A high-frequency vibration sound rang out as the sternum was sawed open in the center. A sternal retractor was inserted, the handle was turned, and the thoracic cavity was completely exposed under the operating light.

Sitting on benches in the corner, Liu Jianmin and the others unconsciously craned their necks. When they saw the exposed heart, a low gasp filled the silent operating room.

This is a heart deformed by disease. Due to years of fighting against the resistance of an extremely narrow outflow tract, the right ventricle has become abnormally thickened, and the entire right ventricle is swollen like a hard ball filled with dark red blood, even larger than the left ventricle.

Ye Zhen's expression remained unchanged.

"Prepare for cardiopulmonary bypass. Insert a purse-string suture into the ascending aorta and insert the arterial perfusion cannula."

Her needle holder flew through the air, the sutures weaving through the aortic wall. Intubation, air release, fixation. Her movements were fluid and rapid, so fast that the experts in the back row didn't even have time to take notes.

"Superior vena cava cannulation. Inferior vena cava cannulation."

With all the pipes connected, Ye Zhen looked up at the infusion engineer.

"The situation is starting to turn around, and the temperature is dropping."

The extracorporeal circulation machine emitted a regular pumping sound. The child's own blood was drained into the machine's membrane lung for oxygenation before being returned to the body. The temperature readings on the monitor began to drop rapidly: 32 degrees Celsius, then 28 degrees Celsius.

"Block the ascending aorta and infuse with cold, high-potassium cardioplegic solution."

Ye Zhen gripped the aortic clamp and precisely clamped the blood vessel. Cardiac arrest fluid was infused into the coronary artery through the root. The previously frantically beating heart gradually slowed down, and a few seconds later, the myocardium completely relaxed. Under the operating lights, this deformed heart stopped beating.

Ye Zhen reached out and took the No. 11 dagger.

"Open the right ventricular outflow tract."

The scalpel tip pierced the thickened anterior wall muscle layer of the right ventricle. As the incision widened, the internal anatomical structures of the heart were fully exposed.

Sitting on the bench, Gao Haiping saw the situation inside through the mirror above the operating table, and his hand holding the cane trembled uncontrollably.

It was too tragic.

A massive ventricular septal defect occupies the upper half of the entire ventricular septum, with the enormous root of the aorta brazenly straddling the defect. The most fatal outflow tract is tightly blocked by two abnormally thick and muscular bundles, and the pulmonary valve at the outlet is adhered together into a hard core no bigger than a mung bean.

"This...this infundibulum is completely blocked." Director Ma lowered his voice in the back row, his voice trembling. "With such a large defect and such extreme outflow tract closure, traditional patches simply cannot reconstruct the outflow tract. If the tension of the transannular patch is insufficient, postoperative pulmonary regurgitation could kill this child!"

All eyes, filled with awe and extreme tension, were focused on the slender woman in the surgeon's position.

Ye Zhen held the tissue scissors, her breathing rate remaining unchanged.

Tissue forceps.

Ye Zhen took the forceps and probed into the right ventricle. Her movements were aggressive, yet incredibly precise. Her gaze swept over the complex anatomical structure without any hesitation.

The sharp blade of the tissue shears cut along the edge of the supraventricular ridge. A long strip of thickened septal muscle that severely obstructed blood flow was cut off and thrown into a side dish.

The experts in the corner felt a chill run down their spines. Removing such a large amount of muscle, if it damaged the conduction tract, would absolutely result in irreversible complete atrioventricular block during the recovery phase. But Ye Zhen's scissors seemed to have eyes, perfectly avoiding the dangerous area where the His bundle travels.

The adhesions of the pulmonary valves were completely cut open, and the incision extended all the way to the normal part of the main pulmonary artery.

With the narrowing relieved, the next challenge is repair.

There are two areas that need repair: one is the large ventricular septal defect, and the other is the right ventricular outflow tract that has been cut open and widened.

"Prepare glutaraldehyde solution," Ye Zhen instructed.

The circulating nurse immediately brought over a stainless steel bowl containing a pre-prepared 0.6% glutaraldehyde solution. Ye Zhen dropped a large piece of her own pericardium, which had been removed during the thoracotomy, into the solution.

"Ten minutes."