Chapter 125: He Even Does Facial Surgery [2] -Ziiik.
The scalpel, diamond-coated and sharp beyond measure, began cutting into Simin's face.
The incision site was roughly one centimeter away from the wound itself.
No matter how skilled Kanghyeok was, he did not dare cut directly through the scar and enter.
I can't go causing an accident like that.
It was not simply a matter of responsibility as a doctor, but also because of the affection he had built up with Simin over time.
"Dolseok, only pull the way I hold it for you."
"Yes. Um..."
Dolseok took the instrument much more carefully than usual.
It was his first facial operation, and the part Kanghyeok was pulling was far too thin.
"What is it?"
"This... it really is different."
"From what?"
"From what we practiced on before."
"Ah."
Dolseok probably meant the anatomy practice.
Naturally, it had to be different from that.
It was not simply the difference between the dead and the living, but the difference brought by repeat surgery.
"It's like this because it was cut by a blade. Once the human body is injured, when it sticks back together again, this is what happens."
Kanghyeok pointed at the cross-section, which had become completely mashed together.
Ordinarily, would that cross-section not have shown skin, fat, and muscle neatly?
Now all of them had undergone fibrosis and were clumped together hideously.
"Why does it turn out like this? If it was going to stick back together anyway, it should have done it more nicely."
"The fact that it stuck together at all after being left alone is what matters. Otherwise, he would have died."
"Is that so...?"
"This elder brother actually got off lightly. There are people far worse than this."
Were there not people with the same kind of wound whose scars swelled up wildly?
The kind commonly called a keloid-prone constitution.
It looked ugly, but it tended to be more advantageous for survival.
That meant even very large wounds closed much better in such people.
It was observed more often among native Africans, and it was presumed that it was because many more people with that constitution had survived.
Kim Simin was not that severe. His wound was simply large and ugly.
Unaware of any of that, Dolseok blinked and asked, "Really?"
"Yes. Let's focus for now, focus. I said it earlier too, but if we make a mistake in today's surgery, it'll be a disaster."
"Yes, Young Master."
"All right, Yeoni, you also just pull exactly the way I positioned it."
Kanghyeok assigned each side of the wound cross-section to Dolseok and Yeoni respectively.
Because both of them pulled only at exactly the angle and strength Kanghyeok had set, he obtained just the right amount of visibility and tension.
Good... The place where the nerve is being compressed is probably in there somewhere... the place where it was injured and scarred over.
Normally, he would have had an MRI before going in.
Attempting this with no examination at all made the difficulty multiply.
He could not target just one spot and enter. He had to inspect every single area one by one.
"If you pull too hard, spaces that aren't actual planes will open up, so keep exactly this amount of tension."
"Yes, Young Master."
"Then let's slowly move into the real part."
Unlike usual, Kanghyeok used scissors instead of his fingers to work into the wound cross-section.
There was no plane at all that would open by pushing with a finger.
He could not even tell where the original skin ended and where the muscle began.
Because of that, the hand holding the scissors had no choice but to grow slower and slower.
It'd be absurd if a nerve ganglion suddenly popped out in the middle of this.
This was not an area where only the fifth cranial nerve passed.
The far more important seventh cranial nerve also passed through here.
The nerve commonly called the facial nerve.
If the fifth cranial nerve handled sensation in the face, the facial nerve controlled movement of the facial muscles.
Naturally, if it were severed, it would be a complete disaster.
What was more, Kanghyeok had personally witnessed that very nerve get cut at exactly this location before.
That was the first time I ever saw that seasoned professor panic like that.
That professor, who normally strode around grandly with his gown hanging open, had gone wide-eyed in shock.
It truly had been a very alarming situation.
They had made the incision and were tidying the cross-section when suddenly something just snapped.
They had assumed it was only fibrotic tissue, but it turned out to be a nerve.
Naturally, the surgery was halted immediately, but by then it was already far too late.
He was a young man...
In an instant, one side of his face had been ruined.
Kanghyeok had not even been the one operating, but for quite some time afterward, that patient remained a discomfort in one corner of his heart.
That patient's cross-section had also been this mangled.
Now that he thought about it, the shape of his face had seemed similar too.
Thinking like this won't help.
Forcing away the ominous thought, Kanghyeok continued cutting with the scissors.
All the while imagining as clearly as possible what it had looked like before the injury.
He focused every bit of his attention on the sensation transmitted to his fingertips.
He was even sparing every single blink.
-Tuduk.
Suddenly, the part Yeoni was pulling gave way and opened wide.
It was because the place Kanghyeok had been cutting, assuming it was the plane between fat and muscle, had turned out to be exactly right.
Of course, Yeoni, who had been pulling, was badly startled.
"Uh?"
Kanghyeok, who had been cutting, was no less alarmed.
"Huh? Ah, whew..."
"Did something tear?"
Unable to let go of the instrument, Yeoni only loosened the strength in her hand and asked.
Looking closely, her hand was trembling slightly.
Since Kanghyeok had kept saying all along that she had to do well today and that it was difficult, it was only a natural reaction.
"Ah, there is a torn part... but pull it like before."
"What if it tears more?"
"It's fine, so pull."
Reluctantly, Yeoni lifted the instrument upward.
At the same time, the lower portion of the muscle that had been hidden beneath the thick scar came fully into view.
"The torn part is only a place where what used to be fat turned into scar tissue. It's fine."
"Really? Whew."
"And under that, what I was looking for is right... here."
"Huh?"
"It's a wonder he didn't die back then. He was lucky."
Kanghyeok placed his finger over the muscle.
He could feel the pounding pulse clearly.
It seemed that when he had been slashed, the facial artery had been injured.
It had happened to reconnect by chance, but it had not healed properly.
It's fortunate it reconnected at all...
In some cases, arteries actually reattached naturally even better than veins.
If the blood pressure dropped sharply enough, blood flow through the artery could decrease even more than through a vein.
Of course, for blood flow to have failed to reach even the facial artery also meant death had been very near.
It really is a miracle that he survived that situation this intact.
His blood pressure must have fallen to the point where it was barely holding at all.
He had clearly survived because he had been born exceptionally tough.
But it was not as though there had been no problem at all. The facial artery's shape had become a mess.
It had even formed what amounted to a traumatic aneurysm.
Its width was well over two centimeters.
With that, there was a high chance that one or two nerves underneath it were being heavily compressed.
"Yeoni, give me your hand for a moment."
"My hand? Why all of a sudden..."
"Give it here, brat."
"Uh..."
Kanghyeok grabbed Yeoni's hesitating hand and placed it over the muscle.
A traumatic aneurysm of this shape was not the sort of thing one got to see often in life.
Even Kanghyeok himself was seeing it for the first time.
Since he had already decided to take her in as a disciple, he did not want to teach carelessly.
Experiencing something once was far better than hearing about it a hundred times.
"How is it? Can you feel it?"
"F-feel what?"
Instead of feeling the blood vessel she was supposed to feel, Yeoni was startled only by Kanghyeok's touch.
At any other time, she would have shaken him off immediately.
But in the operating room, one could hardly slap away the surgeon's hand.
So she could do neither this nor that, and only her face reddened.
Kanghyeok, meanwhile, could not hide his bafflement.
"What do you mean, what? Can't you feel the pounding?"
"Huh?"
If one looked only at the words, it almost sounded like a rather forceful confession.
But instead of a heart, it was someone else's face, and worse, a wound that had been gouged open with a blade, so it only felt strange.
Tilting her head, Yeoni felt for Kanghyeok's pulse.
It was no different from usual.
Neither fast nor slow, just a normal heartbeat.
"What are you doing?"
Kanghyeok looked at Yeoni as if to ask whether she had lost her mind.
Stopping in the middle of surgery and suddenly feeling up his hand?
He was not some pervert.
This was the first time in his life he had encountered something like this.
Yeoni, who had suddenly become the pervert in question, muttered with an aggrieved look, "No, I don't think it's pounding..."
"You can't feel this vibration? That's strange. It's pounding incredibly hard."
"You, Young Master?"
"No. Why would I be pounding? Can't you feel anything under your hand here?"
"Ah."
Only then did Yeoni realize that she had made a tremendous misunderstanding.
When she looked up, Makbong, who was busily pushing in breaths, clicked his tongue.
"You idiot, get a grip!"
"Yes, yes?"
"I'm about to work on the artery now, so reduce the breathing rate!"
"Ah, yes, yes."
Once she came to herself, the hook Yeoni had been holding was rolling around on the floor.
It looked like she had flung it with her head in a fluster, and if it had gone wrong, someone's head might have ended up full of holes.
So much for being some noble gentleman. The Young Master's a devil, a devil.
Grumbling, Makbong obeyed Kanghyeok's order.
Or rather, he tried to.
But because he had been lost in other thoughts and had not really listened, he could not remember anything at all.
What's going to come flying at me this time?
Makbong swiftly moved one of the hooks near Kanghyeok out of the way.
Only after confirming there was nothing left did he dare ask, "But, Young Master."
"What."
"What did you tell me to do again?"
"Ha, this bastard..."
With the heart of a man looking for a fire extinguisher in a burning house, Kanghyeok glanced around, but there was nothing.
What could he do?
He had something far more urgent and important ahead of him than beating the fool.
Suppressing the fury boiling inside him, Kanghyeok said, "I told you I'm about to handle the artery, so adjust the breathing rate."
"Raise it?"
"Lower it! If a whole lot of air gets into the thoracic cavity, what do you think happens to the pressure?"
"How would I know..."
"It rises, right? Then the blood pressure rises too, right? Then blood will spurt everywhere, right? Why don't you know something this simple!"
"Uh... Anyway, I'll lower it..."
"Right. I need to cut out the part where the artery's shape changed and reconnect it. Keep it as slow as possible. Not so slow that he dies, so about half of what you're doing now."
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