A Hospital in Another World?-Chapter 498: I Only Have a Fifty Percent Chance, Should I Save Him or Not?

Kneeling in front of the shrine, the elderly man was clearly the authority figure of this family. Once he agreed, no one beside him opposed — including the child’s father and the relatives of the child’s mother. They all remained silent, maintaining a quiet resolve.

Ah, how I love it when a family has someone to make decisions! When someone takes charge and everyone else just shuts up!

The thing I fear most is when a patient urgently needs surgery, and the eldest son says to operate, while the eldest daughter prefers conservative treatment, and the second daughter asks the doctor to explain again, and no one has even gone to make the payment... It drags on and on, and by the time they finally argue out a decision, it’s already too late to save the patient...

Garrett quietly half-closed his eyes, activating the spirit of the covenant. A small snake with a black pattern on a white background slithered out from the oak staff, rising into the air, nearing the infant. Just as it was about to enter the body, the old man suddenly spoke up:

"Wait!"

???

Garrett opened his eyes to look at him. The elder turned his head to glance at the shrine again, then turned back to Garrett, his expression slightly embarrassed:

"Could we... move to another room?"

Garrett almost laughed out loud. I see. Controlling the spirit of the covenant, being seen as a power of the God of Nature—or just any god’s power by you people—while the healer is a mage, you don’t want the Spring Goddess watching, do you?

Considering that the gaze of a deity is omnipresent, changing rooms won’t really help... What kind of faith do you have... But alright, this small request, considering the thoughts of the patient’s family, is perfectly fine!

The group moved en masse to the next room. This room was much smaller than the adjacent hall, and aside from a few top-tier bigwigs, others felt too embarrassed to crowd in. Only Reverend Matthew was summoned by Garrett:

"Big brother Matthew, give me a hand!"

He handed the steel-branded oak staff to Matthew and sat down at the edge of the table, spreading out some paper, half-closing his eyes again. The snake silently emerged, entering the infant between the legs.

Soon, the oak staff sprouted a root, wrapping around the Endless Ink Pen, beginning to sketch furiously.

The scenes viewed by the ethereal eyes, compared to X-rays, ultrasounds, CT scans, MRIs, and even the views seen by surgeons during open surgeries, were quite different. Skin against muscle, fascia wrapped around blood vessels and nerves, intestines wandering under the mesentery...

Without a sharp pair of eyes and ample spatial imagination, even if one saw it, they wouldn’t understand what they were seeing.

Fortunately, Garrett’s background in his previous life was solid; he knew the anatomical structures by heart. Now, as he observed, he manipulated the Endless Ink Pen to outline the child’s internal condition:

Hmm, high anorectal malformation, with the rectal blind end above the levator ani muscle... If surgery were to be performed, the freed rectum would need to be longer to be pulled through the levator ani muscle and directly anastomosed with the anus below...

Looking to the side, ah, indeed, there was also a recto-vesical fistula. Garrett guided the Endless Ink Pen to heavily mark a dot at the corresponding point on the fistula:

Thankfully, with healing magic, this area isn’t hard to heal. In the past life, with an open wound plus a fistula, that would be too difficult; just look at those patients suffering from anal fistulas.

Continuing upward... no abnormalities in the sacrococcygeal area, that’s great, everything from the tailbone to the lumbar spine, including the neural structures, looks normal. The intestines don’t show any obstruction or narrowing, this child is lucky, both kidneys are intact, and there’s nothing wrong with the urinary system...

“What exactly is he looking at?”

“I don’t know, he’s drawn the entire intestine out, are human intestines that long?”

“It seems they are... isn’t it just missing the bottom part? Why draw so much?”

“He’s now drawing the heart!... That’s the heart, right? It’s drawn so vividly, are you sure he’s not a disciple of the Immortal, but actually a disciple of the Thunder Lord?”

Several top-tier figures whispered among themselves. The child continued to cry, while Garrett sat upright, still and silent. They had nothing else to watch, so they could only look at Garrett’s drawing paper.

One, two, and in a short while, four or five people formed a semicircle, completely surrounding the desk.

The drawing paper was filled with ink

, and as one sheet was filled, another was exchanged—thanks to Reverend Matthew’s diligent efforts, sheet after sheet was replaced for Garrett...

From the pelvis to the colon, ileum, cecum, to the five viscera and six bowels, he specifically detailed the heart. Continuing upwards, even the esophagus was drawn out, then turned back, meticulously delineating the anatomical structures near the rectum and anus:

Pelvis, muscles, ligaments, fascia; blood vessels, nerves, lymph; kidneys, ureters, bladder, rectum...

The infant’s pelvic organs, the size of a fist, he actually drew three large papers, each as wide as a forearm. Several top-tier figures huddled together, holding their breath for a long while, only then did they realize he was drawing the same part from three different perspectives:

Frontal section, lateral section, and a horizontal slice...

“Is it really necessary to be this complicated...”

Master Novak murmured softly. The archbishop from the Temple of War, however, watched with sparkling eyes, hands reaching out then drawing back, then extending again.

If it weren’t for worrying that Garrett might need these drawings, he would probably have rolled them up and pocketed them by now.

“I understand now.” Garrett, after sitting nearly an hour with his eyes half-closed, finally opened his eyes and stood up. He turned to the elder who had initially agreed to let Garrett examine, his expression serious:

“This child, I might be able to save... but at most, I only have a fifty percent chance.”

Fifty percent?

With such a severe condition that even high-ranking healers felt helpless, he claimed to have a fifty percent chance?

Reverend Matthew inhaled sharply. The others present were also high-ranking healers; although they didn’t lose their composure like him, they exchanged serious glances. Master Novak was the first to blurt out an inquiry:

This chapt𝒆r is updated by frёewebηovel.cѳm.

“How do you plan to treat him?”

God bless, this little guy was brought by him, don’t just act tough—or out of a momentary compassion, attempt something!

If the treatment fails, even if others might be wary of the Thunder Lord, there would still be some troubles, big and small!

The room fell silent. Five or six pairs of eyes focused on Garrett, the elder who had agreed to let Garrett examine hesitated a bit, both hopeful and worried:

It would be good to first hear the treatment approach, but mages are mostly proud; if asked to explain, would they feel distrusted and in a fit of pique refuse to treat?

Especially this healer, so young yet a disciple of the Thunder Lord, such a person is likely to have a considerable temper...

However, Garrett didn’t have any hint of an attitude of "I’m the caster, I’m the boss, what I say goes." As a doctor explaining to a patient’s family, it was perfectly natural, he was used to it.

He slightly raised his hand, and a sheet of drawing paper immediately floated up, suspended in front of everyone:

"Look, here’s the child’s rectum—under normal circumstances, the rectum should continue downward, reaching all the way down here, which is the anus." He gestured vaguely on the drawing, his finger tracing along the rectum down to the edge:

"But now, the rectum hasn’t grown this last bit, so we need to make an incision in the skin, pull the rectum down, pull it all the way out, then cut it open and sew it to the skin..."

The entire room fell silent instantly. Garrett explained very simply, so everyone could understand, but after a moment of thought, even more questions emerged:

"Can the rectum be pulled down? Will it tear?"

"Oh, that won’t happen. The rectum itself is elastic, it won’t tear. However, the prerequisite is that you must separate the rectum and its surrounding structures—blood vessels, nerves, omentum, lymph—completely, otherwise, really, something will go wrong..."

"Once it’s pulled down and sewn to the skin, can the child defecate normally? Will it always leak?"

"That won’t happen either—I just checked, the child’s anus still has a sphincter—"

Garrett slightly bent over and patted the infant. The child suddenly awoke, crying loudly, and he pressed a finger where the anus should be, turning to the elder:

"See, there’s a slight bulge here, you can feel the shock sensation, attach the rectum here, the muscles contract, and it can control defecation."

People took turns coming up to feel it, nodding in agreement. Then came the next question:

"There originally wasn’t an opening here, if you forcefully make one, can it be pulled out?"

"That... will need continuous dilation afterward..."

The healers’ questions gradually subsided. The elder closely examined the drawings Garrett had made, then

seriously asked him:

"Why do you say you only have a fifty percent chance? Where’s the risk?"

"First, the child is too small." Garrett took a deep breath:

"Even if healing magic can stop the bleeding and pain immediately, I’m not sure he can survive the trauma caused by the surgery."

The healers all nodded. Healing magic, growth, healing, all consume the body’s own energy. For such a small child, not surviving is normal.

"Secondly, the child was just born, and the blood vessels and nerves next to the rectum are only as thick as a hair. The process of cutting, separating, and pulling down—if even a little bit is damaged, it will greatly affect the child’s future recovery and defecation."

The elder nodded as if he understood. Although he didn’t know what nerves were, he could understand that the smaller the child, the finer the intestines, the smaller the blood vessels. Thinking about having to separate two things as fine as hair strands without damaging them...

Even though he himself was a 12th-level knight, with sharp eyes and steady hands, thinking about this difficulty, he couldn’t help but feel a headache.

"Lastly, this is the first time I’m performing this kind of surgery. Unfamiliar hands are especially prone to problems." Garrett’s statement was entirely truthful. Emergency surgeries, only the critical ones are performed—sewing up livers, removing spleens, cutting kidneys, even sewing intestines, he was very skilled at all of these in his past life. But anything beyond that, such as anoplasty...

Non-urgent, non-life-threatening procedures, all left for the colorectal department to handle!

Speaking of which, the time he was most familiar with the anatomical structures of the rectum-anus area in his previous life was when he himself had mixed hemorrhoids, lying in his own hospital’s colorectal department...

Forget it, the past is unbearable to recall. Garrett shook his head, candidly revealing the last influencing factor:

"Also, even if he survives, the child will need to undergo prolonged dilation treatment, lasting at least six months to a year. To treat or not to treat, that will depend on your decision."

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