Chapter 40: Children who practice sports

Translator: imperfectluck  Editor: Kurisu

The border province Zhang Fan was in concentrated majorly on sports. This province’s basketball and football was among the top in northwestern China, and its boxing and freestyle martial arts were also pretty good.

There was a sports school not far away from Chasu City Hospital. Zhang Fan would often pass by this school, and would always see some young children practicing boxing there. Every hit would make actual physical contact with loud smacks. Zhang Fan felt pain just from watching. However, those children seemed like they were really having fun. Well, everyone’s interests were different!

Later this morning, after the daily morning meeting.

Li Hongtu was seeing patients outside the hospital when he phoned Zhang Fan. “Zhang Fan, do you know how to perform arthroscopy for the knee? I have here a child who injured her knee joint. If you don’t know how to do this surgery, I’ll take her and perform it tomorrow for her.”

“I know how to do it. It’s not a problem. Vice Director Li, no need to worry about it or make her wait until tomorrow. I’ll immediately perform the surgery after giving her a checkup.” Li Hongtu and Cui Pingjun had been promoted by Gao Shijun to become the vice directors of orthopedic department #1.

Some time later, a man who wore a sports uniform with a whistle around his neck walked into the doctors’ offices. He appeared like a physical education teacher.

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“May I ask who here is Doctor Zhang?”

“That’s me. Where’s the patient?” Zhang Fan recalled that Li Hongtu said the patient was a girl, not this man.

“She’s at the hospital entrance.”

“Okay, bring her to the patient examination room. I’ll give her a checkup first.”

Zhang Fan met a girl who seemed to be about eleven or twelve years old. Although her knee joint was in great pain, she didn’t have a single tear in her eyes. She gave off a powerful aura. Zhang Fan helped support her on the bed, and discovered that her left knee joint was severely swollen.

“Sigh! She’s on our boxing team. This morning, she was kicking a football around with the other children, but she didn’t warm up before exercising. She suddenly tripped and twisted herself, injuring her knee. Doctor, please help her! She’s really talented.” Her physical education teacher was quite anxious.

“Please don’t worry. I’m going to give her a checkup, and then perform an MRI scan. I need to see how injured she is. Where’s her family?”

“She’s of H Country ethnicity, and her family is nomadic. It’s not possible to immediately get in contact with them. However, someone’s already been sent out into the plains to contact her family. They should be able to arrive by tomorrow.”

It was the afternoon by the time that the checkup was finished. The physical education teacher was named Wu Yanchao. He was a western-style boxing teacher, and his dream was to raise a Chinese version of Mike Tyson. Wu Yanchao had traveled all over China, and he finally discovered a great boxing talent here in the border province: a girl named Guli.

Although she was still a young girl, she was astonishingly talented at boxing.

Wu Yanchao had tutored Guli in boxing for two years now, and she had made significant boxing accomplishments. However, she injured herself while playing football with some of the other sports school children. Several teachers came over to help out. The sports school’s teachers were all strong, muscular men. It was quite simple for them to carry the little girl Guli. Since Guli was still young, she even felt it was great fun to have so many men carrying her like that. She didn’t understand that perhaps her injury might even end her entire sports career.

The next day, in the daily morning meeting, Zhang Fan brought out Guli’s MRI scan after everyone finished discussing their surgeries. “This patient is female, eleven years old. She’s currently a student at the sports school. Yesterday, she accidentally injured her knee joint while playing football. This has caused pain and swollenness in her knee joint, which is why she came to our hospital. My preliminary diagnosis is that her anterior cruciate ligament was torn.”

Everyone else immediately widened their eyes, not understanding what Zhang Fan was saying. Li Hongtu was the only arthroscopy specialist doctor in the department. However, he was in poor physical condition, and had to take today off after visiting patients all day outside yesterday. Since nobody else here knew about arthroscopy, they didn’t understand what Zhang Fan said.

“What do you recommend, then?” Gao Shijun spoke up since he saw that nobody else was saying anything. Gao Shijun’s specialty was the spine, and he only had average understanding of knee arthroscopy. As for why that was the case, it was because knee arthroscopy would only use up a few threads of medical equipment at most. It wasn’t profitable, so knee arthroscopy wasn’t well developed at Chasu City Hospital.

“Considering that she’s still young, and that she wants to become a professional athlete in the future, I think it would be better for her not to use simple thread sutures. That’s because thread sutures will permanently affect her ligament slightly. Although it will barely affect ordinary movements, it will be no good for a professional athlete. I want to use a bone screw to fix the anterior entrance. The child’s body is still in physical development. She’ll recover quickly. This will help her anterior cruciate ligament to recover in about half a year with almost zero side effects to her afterwards.”

“Okay, since you already have a plan, let’s carry it out. What help do you need from us?”

“A bone screw. Our Chasu City Hospital doesn’t have a single bone screw! They’re not cheap.”

“I’ll go see what I can do. You should talk to the patient’s family to see if they’re in any financial difficulty. If they really can’t afford the bone screw, I’ll contact my medical equipment supplier Li Qiong and see if she can sponsor them. This will be the first bone screw operation in our city. It should be possible to expand the use of bone screws.”

After the meeting ended, Zhou Chengfu patted Zhang Fan’s shoulder while asking, “How much money do bone screws cost?”

“It depends on the brand. For the best brands, a minimum of 30,000 yuan.”

“For a single one?”

“Yeah.”

Xue Fei was nearby and heard this conversation as well. He exchanged glances with Zhou Chengfu. ‘Did we pick the wrong orthopedic specialty team to join? It seems like arthroscopy in joints can be quite profitable!’

Guli’s family lived in the rural nomadic herding area. Her parents, older brother, and older sister all arrived at the hospital later that night. She had a big family. Although the first snow had already fallen in Chasu City, the weather still wasn’t that cold yet. However, the nomadic district had long since entered winter already. It was really cold there.

All of her family members were wearing heavy leather jackets and warm boots. None of them knew how to speak Chinese, so Guli acted as the translator for them. Zhang Fan explained the surgery procedure as well as the surgery fees. He also explained that Guli’s family didn’t need to worry about the surgery fees too much, as the hospital would try and contact a medical equipment supplier who was willing to sponsor the costs.

“How much money will it cost? Will five sheep be enough?” Guli’s older brother asked a question. Zhang Fan understood after Guli translated.

“That won’t be enough. Chinese bone screws are inferior in quality to imported ones,” Zhang Fan explained.

“If even one cow won’t be enough, will one horse be enough?”

“You don’t want to wait for the hospital to contact a medical equipment supplier for sponsorship?”

“It would be nice if that happens, but if not, just hurry up and do the surgery as quickly as possible. It doesn’t matter how much the surgery fee is. Her body is the most important.”

Guli’s family didn’t appear as if they were very rich. All of their clothes and boots were handmade, and it was obvious that they spent most days out on the plains, under the sun and blown by the wind. Their faces were red, a trait of being out on the plains all day. Their hands were also covered in coarse calluses, obviously from performing heavy work year-round.

Zhang Fan confusedly went over to the nurses’ station to tell them about the family’s requests. The head nurse looked at Zhang Fan, and asked, “What’s the matter? You look confused.”

“Guli’s family wants to do the surgery as quickly as possible. But, they don’t look like such a rich family.”

“Ah, you don’t understand how things work here. Here, the rich don’t always wear bright and beautiful clothing. Maybe those who wear bright and beautiful clothing are actually scammers. Do you know that their nomadic district’s grassy plains is more than several hundred square acres? All of that belongs to Bayi, did you know? I have a friend whose daughter is getting married. According to her… Do you see that mountain over there? All the livestock on that mountain is her daughter’s dowry. Her husband’s family was from the city. When they saw all the sheep which were as numerous as the clouds in the sky, they were rendered speechless for very long.”

Gao Shijun contacted his medical equipment supplier. Li Qiong’s company had access to imported bone screws, but the bone screws needed to be shipped to Chasu City. That would take approximately three to four days. Since no hospitals in Chasu City had performed surgeries with bone screws before, Li Qiong didn’t have any in stock for Chasu City.

Li Hongtu was quite surprised to hear Zhang Fan’s plans for the surgery when he came to work the next day. He said, “I’ve indeed seen this type of surgery a few times when visiting the provincial hospital. Can you really do it?”

“Yeah. When I was studying at Bluebird City Hospital, they had an arthroscopy center that specialized in arthroscopy surgeries for athletes. I performed several such surgeries there, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Alright. Once the medical equipment arrives, I’ll act as your primary surgical assistant. I’ll learn from you.”

Wang Yanan who was right there glared at Li Hongtu. Her position as primary surgical assistant had been heartlessly taken away.