Chapter 1370: The Problem Gets Thorny

Chapter 1370: Chapter 1370: The Problem Gets Thorny

(Thanks to book friends 20190329150054034 and Sterling for the monthly ticket support)

It looks like a very simple problem, but when you actually start dealing with it, it becomes complicated.

This time it’s not only stumping Chen Hongyang, it’s also stumping Liu Banxia.

Because the impact of this matter is huge, and if anything goes wrong, no one can afford to take the blame.

"How about this, I’ll give Old Chen a call, have him come over and discuss it too?" Liu Banxia said.

"You make the call on this. I’m only responsible for reporting the problem," Chen Hongyang said.

"Did you examine the child after he came in this time?" Liu Banxia asked, continuing.

"I did. But when I examined him, I didn’t feel there was anything wrong with the kid. So I gave oxygen, drew blood, and didn’t keep examining further," Chen Hongyang said.

"Then I’d better call Old Chen. This is kind of a big deal." Liu Banxia curled his lips.

He hurriedly took out his phone and called Chen Xuehai, but Chen Xuehai had surgery scheduled today and couldn’t come over for the moment.

"The test results will be out soon. I can’t keep bluffing for too long either," Chen Hongyang said.

"Then there’s nothing we can do, it’s just the two of us. Come on, let’s go take a look at the kid and his mom," Liu Banxia said.

There was no other way now; the two of them had to handle it first. They couldn’t drag Zhou Shuwen or one of the other Chief Directors from the inpatient department over just because of this.

The two of them, alert and focused, went to the treatment room. Chen Hongyang led him over to a little boy who was on oxygen.

Liu Banxia paid special attention to his mother as well, trying to judge her state mentally. For now she didn’t seem to have any obvious issues, just looked tired.

This is also one presentation of Munchausen syndrome by proxy: even if they’re extremely anxious before coming to the hospital, once they’re here, they become emotionally very stable.

"Let me introduce you. This is Director Liu from our emergency center. I invited him to come help take a look at your child," Chen Hongyang said.

"Thank you, thank you Dr. Chen, thank you Director Liu," the boy’s mother said gratefully.

"From Dr. Chen’s notes I hear there’s respiratory distress. What was he like before the onset today?" Liu Banxia asked.

"He was short of breath, like he couldn’t catch his breath. And Junjun has symptoms of epilepsy too. When he has an episode, he’s not like other kids with the foaming at the mouth or convulsions. He just stares at one spot, and sometimes his body will tremble a bit," the boy’s mother said.

"Okay, I’ll first do auscultation for Junjun, listen carefully to his heart and lung sounds," Liu Banxia said.

The child and his mother had no objections to this suggestion; it was exactly what she’d been hoping for.

Liu Banxia listened carefully to the boy’s chest but didn’t hear any abnormalities.

He kept his face unreadable, but in his mind the balance had already tipped toward the likelihood that this mother had Munchausen syndrome by proxy.

"Little guy, how old are you?"

Liu Banxia looked at the kid and asked.

"Four."

The little guy held up four fingers as he spoke.

"Wow, so smart. When the nurse auntie drew your blood today, did you cry?" Liu Banxia asked again.

"I cried, it hurt," the little guy said.

"You’re really brave. Tell uncle, what do you like to eat the most?" Liu Banxia teased him.

"Ice cream."

The little guy’s face suddenly lit up, but after he spoke he cautiously glanced over at his mom.

"His airways aren’t good. I don’t dare let him have too much of anything too cold or too hot. Director Liu, how do his sounds look to you?" the boy’s mother asked.

"His condition right now is already quite good. Let’s wait a bit longer. Once the rest of the test results come out, we’ll take another look," Liu Banxia said.

"Okay, we’ll wait. Every day I’m worried he’ll have an attack, it really wears you down," the boy’s mother said.

Liu Banxia smiled and nodded, then walked back to the office with Chen Hongyang.

"What’s your impression?" Chen Hongyang asked.

"Doesn’t feel great. On auscultation, his heart and lung sounds are perfectly normal. When I was talking to him, his consciousness was clear, and he showed fear of his mother," Liu Banxia said.

"But it’s not the kind of fear you get when a mom often beats the kid. It’s more a habitual wariness. From that you can also see that right now the child isn’t showing any epileptic symptoms."

"The last few times you saw him, did you also just give oxygen or do nebulization? I only checked the number of visits just now and didn’t look closely at the details."

"He’s only had nebulization once, the first time he came last year. After that we just gave him oxygen," Chen Hongyang said.

"That time when the kid came in he did have some bronchial inflammation, probably because of that. I didn’t think too much of it, and the next two times I just habitually followed that management standard."

"It’s just that his respiratory distress symptoms were never very obvious, so later we always used oxygen to assist his breathing. The kid’s condition improved quickly, so we didn’t pay much attention."

"That’s normal. If it weren’t like that, you probably wouldn’t have noticed today," Liu Banxia said.

"We still need to look at the kid’s test results. My suggestion is to add a chest film and an EEG. The chest film can show things more clearly, and the EEG can tell us whether there’s subclinical epilepsy."

Subclinical means a state between having an attack and not having an attack. Clinically there may be no abnormal signs at all, but if you do an EEG, you might capture abnormal discharges.

"We can do that, I’ll arrange it right away. Give it a few more minutes and the blood test results should be out too, I marked them as urgent," Chen Hongyang said.

"Sigh... today’s situation really is a bit nerve-racking. I don’t know if it’s because I already formed a tentative judgment in my mind, but I keep feeling there’s something off about the kid’s mother’s attitude," Liu Banxia said.

"A mother caring about her child is only natural. But judging from the kid’s visit history, at this stage the mother should have quite a bit of medical knowledge; she shouldn’t still be this anxious."

"That’s something I didn’t notice. Having you come over is useful, I’ll first arrange the chest film and EEG," Chen Hongyang thought for a moment and nodded.

You really had to hand it to Liu Banxia: he’d been focused on other aspects and hadn’t paid much attention here. Even though he’d noticed the kid’s mother being anxious, he only saw the result and hadn’t looked at the process.

Liu Banxia walked out of the pediatrics consulting room; now they just had to wait for the kid’s results. Especially subclinical epilepsy—making that diagnosis is quite complicated.

Mainly because this situation involves too much, it’s not easy to make a judgment.

"Teacher Liu, Teacher Liu, this is bad, really bad—over these few years, it’s not less than a hundred!"

While Liu Banxia was still mulling things over, Liu Yiqing ran over.

"A hundred what?" Liu Banxia asked, puzzled.

"That stage-three syphilis patient," Liu Yiqing said.

"That’s just what’s recorded on his phone; there are others he had no way to record. I don’t even know what to say, I’m just really shocked."

Liu Banxia gave her a wry look. "What’s there to be shocked about? In society nowadays, I really don’t know what to say anymore."

The situation was beyond even what he’d expected. Even though he’d had a rough idea, he hadn’t thought it would be this many.

It’s only been a few years—counting the recorded and unrecorded ones together, what kind of frequency is that?

"Anyway, the people doing the tally are already having trouble sorting things out. Quite a few aren’t from Binhai City, we need help from other cities to contact them," Liu Yiqing said.

"And then there are the ones he picked up while wandering around for fun. We’ll just have to track them down slowly; the expected scale is not small. Do you have any thoughts?"

"Thoughts? I don’t have any thoughts," Liu Banxia said.

"Running into a case like this isn’t that special either. I don’t think he’s an isolated case; with today’s lifestyle, there won’t be few people like him."

"It’s just that our guy is a bit special—because he’s sick. He’ll infect others. Tell me, how screwed up is that? There’s got to be some element of wanting revenge on society."

"But I’m really puzzled. He looks decent, but not exactly very handsome. A lot of them must be paid, right? And there are ones from other cities—how does he make his money?"

"That part I’ve heard a bit about. Apparently he also trades stocks. But I don’t know the details. Anyway, I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do," she said.

"You did well. I’ll add a dish to your lunch," Liu Banxia said casually.

"Eh? Teacher Liu, I feel like you’re a bit off today," Liu Yiqing said, frowning.

"Nothing, I just have things on my mind. We just ran into a new situation," Liu Banxia said.

He then briefly went over the whole situation to Liu Yiqing; talking it through was also part of his thinking process.

"Oh no, Teacher Liu, you have to be really careful, you can’t let the kid get hurt," Liu Yiqing said nervously after listening.

"Sigh, we’re a bit muddled ourselves right now," Liu Banxia said.

"We mainly have to wait for the test results and then make a judgment. Anyway, both Dr. Chen and I are worried sick—this case is really too tricky."

"Exactly, we have to protect the kid. But if it turns out not to be what we think, the damage to that family would be huge, and we’d be taking on a lot of responsibility."

"That’s what we’re worried about," Liu Banxia said, sitting down to the side.

With this case, they were essentially making a diagnosis too, except they weren’t only diagnosing the child, but also the child’s mother.

But unlike with other patients, they couldn’t just directly question the child’s mother; they could only probe indirectly. And now things were getting stuck, because both he and Chen Hongyang couldn’t find a new breakthrough.

From auscultating the child’s chest, he felt the kid’s body was actually fine.

Right now the focus was the EEG. If that still didn’t yield anything, they’d have to come up with another way.