After graduating in 2000, I came to work in the obstetrics and gynecology department of this tertiary care hospital.
At that time, there was only one obstetrics and gynecology department in our hospital; two years later, the hospital expanded rapidly and built a dozen-story high outpatient building, and our obstetrics and gynecology department was re-divided into gynecology and obstetrics; in 2006, our obstetrics department was divided into two departments; after 2010, it was divided into four departments.
After the introduction of the two-child policy, the outpatient and inpatient volume of the department has spurted, and the admission rate has increased geometrically. The usual 46 beds are far from enough, and most of the time in a year, beds are added on both sides of the corridor, up to 60 or even 70 beds. Most of the time, only a pathway for one person can be left in the middle of the corridor.
There are 21 nurses and 18 doctors in the department, and the wards are spread out in a fan shape in the hallway, with the nurses’ station in the middle. Although the entire ward is only a short distance of 500 meters, but years and years of running, the soles of my feet have worn thick calluses.
There is a small nurse in our department, when she first went to work, she did not know the greatness of it, and she wore a pair of leather shoes with a heel on the night shift, and the next day the soles of her feet were worn with more than a dozen blisters, and from then on, she had to meekly wear non-heeled nurses’ shoes when she went to work – every night shift, a nurse’s regular work includes taking temperature, taking blood pressure, infusion, changing fluids, starting needles, and in between, there is also the night shift. In the middle of the night, there are also a series of admission procedures such as entering hospital records and drawing blood, so it is common to walk tens of thousands of steps overnight. Many new nurses wipe their tears at the director when they turn in at 8:00 am.
In fact, the dirty and tired are nothing to us old nurses, but the most sad thing is watching the patients not being rescued. The old generation said, “giving birth is to pass through the ghost gate”, every woman upgraded to a mother has to go through the dance with death of the 91 difficulties, before, and now is still. Every maternal death I encountered in my work made me feel powerless.
Even in today’s advanced medical technology, in our department with a strong medical and technical backbone in obstetrics (a prefectural and municipal rescue center for critically ill pregnant women), every year, we still witness, to a greater or lesser extent, mothers struggling with life and death. When I first started working, I could only see the joyful scene of a family gathered around the mother and happily teasing the newborn; later, when I got pregnant and gave birth to a daughter, I experienced the pain of childbirth; now, after 20 years of work, my biggest feeling is that I can see the fragility of life more clearly and see the essence of marriage and love more clearly.
1
On February 23, 2018, the eighth day of the first month of the lunar calendar, it had just snowed in spring and was cold.
In the quiet ward, there was a sudden rush of emergency medical staff – a pregnant woman with hemorrhage, named Zeng Chunhua, was transferred from County A People’s Hospital.
The medical record showed that she was only 28 years old, 34 weeks pregnant, with placenta abruptio (placenta abruptio, generally refers to the normal position of the placenta after 20 weeks of pregnancy or during the delivery period, before the fetus is delivered partially or completely stripped from the uterine wall, is a relatively common obstetric condition), the third child, had two cesarean sections, the first girl, 5 years old; the second girl, 3 years old.
She was hospitalized in County Hospital A for stomach pain – “epigastric discomfort”. On local ultrasound, she was found to have a scar pregnancy, placenta praevia and placenta abruptio. In a scar pregnancy (women who have had a cesarean section at their first birth are left with a scar on their uterus, called a “scarred uterus”, and if a fetus is born in a scar on the uterus after another pregnancy, it is called a “scarred pregnancy”, which is a rare and dangerous obstetric emergency). In this case, the chance of placenta praevia is higher in the medical history of Zeng Chunhua (a rare and dangerous obstetric emergency). The blood test also revealed that Zeng Chunhua had some malnutrition and anemia, so the county hospital had to perform an emergency cesarean section, which resulted in bleeding during the cesarean section and transfusion of plasma and red blood cells.
On the second day of surgery in the county hospital, Zeng Chunhua suddenly showed symptoms of weakness, low hematocrit, drowsiness and coma, so the 120 emergency vehicle of the county hospital transferred her to our hospital urgently.
When she came to our department, Zeng Chunhua was already unconscious. Her first impression to me was that she was pale and thin, like a clothes rack. Her clothes looked especially fat and hung shakily on her body. Now that living conditions are better, pregnant women are mostly over-nourished and fat, but she was arguably the thinnest one I’ve ever seen.
It is reasonable to say that a pregnant woman of her age should have a rosy complexion, round cheeks and even a double chin, but she looked like an old man with sunken cheeks, slender limbs and a larger-than-normal stomach. When I inserted her catheter and turned her over, her bones choked her a little. The veins in her hands were also clearly visible during the infusion, and they were stuck into her veins at once. Looking at Zeng Chunhua’s medical records, I found that her weight before pregnancy was 120 pounds, and when she was admitted to the county hospital, it was 100 pounds – that is, during the entire pregnancy, she not only did not gain weight, but also lost a full 20 pounds.
After the director and I finished checking the room, we called Zeng Chunhua’s family to the office and explained to them about the patient’s condition and the follow-up treatment. The people who came to the office were Zeng Chunhua’s husband and her mother. From them, we learned that Zeng Chunhua had not done any normal pregnancy tests during her pregnancy – they thought that it was the most common thing for a woman to have a baby, and that this baby would be like the first two babies, and that it would just be cut out on the day, so they didn’t even think about going to the hospital for another checkup. So in 7 months, Zeng Chunhua only had two ultrasounds.
The director listened to her husband’s description and sighed deeply: “If you do normal maternity checkups, you may know in advance that there are these scar pregnancies, pregnancy hypertension and other such problems, and actively intervene and prevent them, so that she will not be sick like this!” The husband of Zeng Chunhua said he was silent when he said this. The director went on to say that Zeng Chunhua’s current nutritional status was very poor, with severe anemia and an aggressive placenta praevia prone to hemorrhage. The excessive post-operative bleeding made her situation very unpromising, with various organs affected to varying degrees.
“How was her diet during pregnancy?” The husband was still silent when asked, at which point, Zeng Chunhua’s mother said with a sobbing voice: “My daughter is too frugal, can’t afford to eat, she herself does not earn money, her husband works outside to earn money for the whole family of four food, drink and water. In the past few years, she just give birth to children, the economic pressure is also big, a little bit of good food, but also left the two little ones. I was also careless, every time I asked her, she said, enough money to spend, it’s okay. People are pregnant at home, someone to wait on them, my daughter does everything, at home, in the field, picking up and dropping off the older daughter, taking care of the younger daughter, washing and cleaning everything on their own …… Now it’s like this! I’m a child of misery ……”
The more the old lady says, the more excited she gets, and at the end of the day, she even cries on the director’s desk. The mother-in-law said so, Zeng Chunhua’s husband’s eyes also flooded with tears. I wanted to persuade Zeng Chunhua’s mother, thought about it, forget it, let the old lady cry, it is useless to say too much at this time, I can only sigh in the heart, twelve sympathy for the poor Zeng Chunhua.
2
I finished talking to the director, returned to the nurses’ station, and gave the nurses a briefing on Zeng Chunhua’s condition.
“Everyone, put down the work in hand first. Listen to me, now our department transferred to a serious patient, we are all in high spirits. Sister Liu, Xiao Zhao, you day shift, pay attention to more observation of Zeng Chunhua’s condition. Infusion, nursing, blood sampling and other basic techniques should also be operated by you two, do not let the new children to do; Zhang Jing, Li Yuan, Wang Fang, you three night shift, more to Zeng Chunhua’s 2 ward run, all spirit, nimble. The director just said, Zeng Chunhua’s condition is dangerous, we can not make a mistake in nursing, must strictly follow the doctor’s orders, closely observe the patient’s condition, can not be sloppy.” I’m still not sure, and urged them to say, “Everyone dispersed, there is a lot of work.”
The colleagues all hurriedly walked away, only Xiao Du stood still.
“Du’er, what’s wrong?” The 22-year-old Du graduated to our department three months ago and followed Wang Fang on the night shift.
“Chief nurse, I’m a little scared.” She whispered with her head down.
“Duer, if you’re afraid, don’t be a nurse, besides, there’s Sister Wang and you on the night shift together! If you don’t understand, ask, see more, slowly get used to it.” I patted her shoulder. I am not worried about Xiaodu, we are all growing up like her, when the nurse must step over the “fear of death” this psychological hurdle.
With the hospitalization of Zeng Chunhua and her just 3 days old little daughter, the poor child, has not eaten a mouthful of mother’s milk, accompanied by his mother into the hospital. Because of the limited beds in the ward, Zeng Chunhua’s husband and mother-in-law laid a mat in the corridor outside the ward, and the mat was covered with a quilt. In addition to the hospital’s required room visits they put this mat away, the rest of the time, Zeng Chunhua’s mother-in-law were on this mat carefully cared for the baby.
Zeng Chunhua’s little daughter was thinner than the average baby because of her mother’s malnutrition, only 5 pounds or so. After her grandmother fed her with a bottle, the child always slept quietly most of the time. Her father would also carry Zeng Chunhua to her bed when she was occasionally awake, so that she could enjoy her mother’s love for a while.
The director asked me to persuade the grandchildren to leave and not live in the hallway. However, every time I walked up to the three of them and saw the poor baby, I couldn’t say the words that I had been mumbling in my heart for a long time. I touched the quilt on the mat, like a summer cooler, only a thin layer, and went to the warehouse to find a quilt for them.
“Chief nurse, do you charge for this quilt?” Zeng Chunhua’s mother-in-law asked.
“No, you can use it first.”
“Just don’t charge, then we will cover it first, so we don’t have to wear my broken cotton jacket at night.” Hearing this, the old man warmly took my hand, “Thank you, we have met a good man!”
“Where’s your meal, ma’am?” I saw that the old man had an enamel jar on the ground, which held some soy-purple pickles and two dried and skinned steamed buns.
“We crop people are not so sophisticated, we just like to eat a pickle.” The old man smiled shyly, revealing a dried out tooth bed and a few sparse yellowing teeth.
“Then you should eat first! The child will wake up later.” I was afraid of disturbing the old man’s meal, so I hurriedly walked away.
In the evening, we nurses ordered the usual fast food box lunch, excluding the nurses on duty at the nurses’ station, we went to work that day six people all crowded in a small nurses’ lounge to eat.
Wang Fang said about Zeng Chunhua’s husband: “When we checked the room, he kept asking after the director about his condition, and even shed tears as he talked about it. What have you been doing? Now I’m afraid.”
It turns out that Wang Fang was giving Zeng Chunhua an infusion when she heard Zeng Chunhua’s mother crying and criticizing her son-in-law: “Your family is a single generation, you want my daughter to be born one after another, my daughter suffered a lot!”
“That’s right, what is pretending to be pitiful now? Even the normal pregnancy test is not done, I really do not know how this husband is!” Xiao Du is also indignant at the indifferent attitude of Zeng Chunhua’s husband.
“It is to treat his wife as a fertility machine, only care about what is wrong with the machine, and do not care about the woman who fought for his life to give birth to a child.” Wang Fang advised Xiao Du in this way.
“Her husband is dark and thin, I heard he is working in Beijing construction site, it is not easy. These days I hardly see him eat, either at the bedside looking at his wife on the hospital bed, or go to the corridor holding his daughter and wiping tears.” Liu, who ate silently, said she was the oldest and most considerate of others, “I just pity Zeng Chunhua’s old mother, just I went to the operating room, in the stairwell, saw the old lady crying alone in secret.”
“Have not seen her father?” I asked Sister Liu.
“Her father and brother, both working in Guangzhou, are on their way home. I talked to her mother, said the medical expenses did not come together enough, afraid to delay the daughter’s illness.”
When Xiao Du cleaned up the table, she found an extra order of boxed lunch. She wanted to throw it in the garbage, but I stopped her: “No, don’t throw it away, save it for Zeng Chunhua and the others.”
When I took the boxed lunch to the corridor, Zeng Chunhua’s mother-in-law was sitting on a cushion with a dry steamed bun and gnawing on it. I put the boxed rice next to her enamel jar: “Auntie, you haven’t eaten yet, don’t mind, our section ordered an extra meal.”
“Aiya, you see, you see,” she hurriedly got up and waved her hands, “No, no.”
“Auntie, don’t be polite! Hospitalization costs a lot, so take it! You can’t keep eating pickles either.” I didn’t wait for Zeng Chunhua’s mother-in-law to push back, I quickly walked back to the nurses’ station.
“Thank you, give you trouble ……” I walked out a long way, still heard the old man keep chanting this sentence.
During the few days Zeng Chunhua was hospitalized in our department, not only did our nurses pack meals for her mother-in-law to eat, but several family members of hospitalized patients also gave them meals that they couldn’t eat or specifically called them from the restaurant. In this way, it was considered to save some expenses for Zeng Chunhua’s family.
3
On the third day of Zeng Chunhua’s hospitalization, I was off work. I took advantage of my break to wash and dry all the small clothes, quilts and blankets that the children had used when they were little and put them in a big bag.
When I arrived at the hospital at 7:30 the next morning, Zeng Chunhua’s mother-in-law was folding diapers in the hallway. The diapers were made from adults’ clothes, and they were all green and flowery, and when I took a closer look, there was a stain of urine and feces on them.
20 years working in obstetrics, I see the marriage
“Ma’am, let me help you!” I knew she had to get everything packed up in time for the 8:00 check-in and rushed up to help.
“Gee, matron, you’re weirdly busy ……,” the old man said as he put his diapers and clothes away in a large woven bag.
I picked up the bottle and a can of milk powder from the floor: “And this, where do I put it?”
The old woman then pulled out a plastic bag from her pocket.
“Auntie, is this enough milk powder?”
“Yes, 30 yuan a tube, this is not only 4 days to drink up.”
I took a look at the price on the can of milk powder, which is really the cheapest I’ve seen since I joined the workforce.
When the room is finished, Sister Liu quietly pulled me aside: “Zeng Chunhua owes hospital fees, and if you don’t pay the fees, the bedside doctor can’t give medical advice on the computer.” Our hospital rules are: print out the charge vouchers for each patient at 7:00 a.m. sharp, check with the patient’s family, and then make a reminder. If a charge is “unpaid” over $500, the doctor’s computer automatically locks up and no orders can be given, and our nurses cannot give infusions, treatments or care.
“Have you been reminded?”
“I did, but yesterday I owed more than 1,000, and his husband said he knew. This is not, today reconciliation, and owe more than 1000, more trouble is, Zeng Chunhua does not have rural cooperative medical, I really embarrassed to call again.” Sister Liu said with difficulty.
“Why is there no cooperative medical care? That’s only 220 yuan a year, still save not pay it?” I was a little surprised. Considering Zeng Chunhua’s special condition, I decided to call her husband to the office to talk about it.
“The family of patient Zeng Chunhua in bed 35, please come to the head nurse’s office for a moment.” I picked up the nurse’s station pager. A moment later, after two light knocks on the door, Zeng Chunhua’s husband opened the door a tiny crack and revealed half of his face: “Nurse manager, are you looking for me?”
“Please come in and sit down. Is Zeng Chunhua doing better?”
“Still the same, unconscious.” His left hand rubbed his right hand, rubbing it back and forth.
“It may be a slow recovery, you families need to have faith.” I advised with my mouth, still thinking about how to mention the money to him.
“Well ……” he choked a little, wiping his eyes with his sleeve, “It’s okay, I’ll hold out, head nurse, did you want to talk to me about medical expenses?” He did take the initiative to mention it.
“Yes, I think the bedside nurses have told you, the patient owes a certain amount of money and must pay in time to ensure that the doctor gives medical orders in time and the patient gets good treatment ……”
“Chief nurse, I know. The family is really a bit difficult, in the county hospital spent 30,000, the family’s little savings will be all spent. I also asked my relatives to borrow, just need to wait a little longer.”
“That’s good – let’s do it this way, I’ll say hello to the hospital office first, and wait two days. Besides, we can still go to the Red Cross, online crowdfunding. Let’s think about it, we’ll get through.” I said.
I have only seen a very few families in the obstetrics and gynecology department who owe money. The average family will be prepared to pay for the birth of a child, and now the rural cooperative medical and urban health insurance has covered the vast majority of families, most of them can reimburse 70 to 80 percent of the proportion of the birth of the family back to poverty is very few.
“Why don’t you enroll her in cooperative medical care? It’s only $220 a year.” I sighed.
“Not only her, my family of six are not enrolled in cooperative medical care. I think, rural people are honest, not sick all year round hospitalization, and then spend that money to do what ……”
“Hey. You can find friends and relatives to borrow a little more, I also communicate with the hospital office.” That’s all I can say.
“Thank you nurse ……” Zeng Chunhua’s husband stood up at once and bowed deeply to me.
For the sake of Zeng Chunhua, I approached the hospital office to communicate several times. So much so that later, when I held my weekly meeting, I was often joked by the head nurses of other departments, saying that our department was an “all-purpose department”, not only treating patients, but also rescuing their families, and taking care of their food, drink, and food.
4
Zeng Chunhua was transfused with a large amount of plasma and red blood cells, but on February 25, she still did not improve, and surprisingly, the symptoms of urine and anuria appeared, and the director decided to immediately transfer to the nephrology department.
When I went there with the director, Zeng Chunhua was already on a ventilator and had abdominal bleeding, so the director and a few competent assistants started to do a dissection to find the bleeding point, and after surgery, on February 28, Zeng Chunhua’s condition was finally under control.
At the same time, a critically ill pregnant woman named Jin Mingming was admitted to our department because all obstetrics and gynecology departments in the city were closed.
Jin Mingming, who was more than 6 months pregnant and had not taken regular pregnancy tests, was coughing and holding her breath a month ago. During the treatment, blood check revealed liver cancer, which was advanced. Doctors at the city hospital advised Jin Mingming to terminate her pregnancy for the next step of treatment, but her father strongly advocated to be transferred to our department for induction of labor. As for the patient herself, she was never aware of her condition.
Jin Mingming was in bed 22, and Director Zhang and I went to check the room: “Jin Mingming’s family? Which one is it?” A short man in his 30s flashed out from among the people sitting in front of Jin Mingming’s bed and approached us with a smile.
I had seen Jin Mingming’s family signature on the admission note and guessed that this man was her husband, Wang Hui. He is not tall, fat, round face, small eyes, single eyelid, look at the dress should be a simple rural people. He had a habit of smiling shyly when he spoke first.
“Come to my office at 10 o’clock.” The director said to him.
“I have to wait for my old man to come.” Jin Mingming’s husband still smiled and answered the director.
When we checked the room, Jin Mingming didn’t say a word. She was half lying on the hospital bed with a waxy face, inhaling oxygen and holding her cell phone in her hand all the time.
In the early spring, the room was heated, but it was still a bit cool, but she was barefoot and not wearing socks. I walked over and put the quilt over her feet.
“What are you looking at?” I asked.
“The pictures.” Kim seemed to squeeze the two words out of her teeth.
“Your children?”
“Yes, two maidens.” A smile emerged from the corner of her mouth, the only smile I had seen from her since she had been hospitalized.
“Chief nurse, what’s wrong with this baby of mine that I have to be induced?” She asked me.
“It’s deformed, and it has to be induced.” I lied to her.
“I really don’t want to do this operation, this child has a problem, thinking that when the body recovers to have another one. You know, the countryside, there is always a boy is more secure.”
Hearing this, my heart stuttered, I do not know what it is like. “Don’t think about it so much first, get well and you can have another.” I tugged the quilt on her body upward.
This was the only direct communication Kim had with me during her hospitalization. Because of her chest congestion and breath-holding, she could only half lie down most of the time, and could not even sleep flat, much less get out of bed. The director gave special instructions that her legs were full of thrombotic emboli and she was required to be completely bedridden, eating, drinking, and pooping in bed.
At 11:00 a.m., I had just finished entering Kim’s hospital records when the director called me into her office. A dark-skinned, gray-haired, 60-year-old-looking man sat next to Kim’s husband. Before the old man could speak, tears were welling up in the corners of his eyes, and he kept wiping his eyes with his hands.
“Age (of Jin Mingming)?”
Wang Hui smiled and replied, “31 years old.”
“How many children have you had? Miscarriage counts.”
“Three.”
“Boys and girls?”
“Two girls, one 11 years old and one 7 years old, miscarried once, this is the 4th pregnancy.”
“Do you know about your wife’s illness?”
“Well, if it can be cured, it can’t be cured, forget it.” Wang Hui’s answer was calm, could not see any mood swings.
“Family, let us first inform – the patient’s condition is so serious, please be psychologically prepared, may be transferred to the ICU at any time. again, you ask to induce the child in the patient’s belly? Do you know that this is a big risk? Maybe she will die suddenly during the operation. If she is not induced, she can still enjoy a few more months of happiness.” The director said.
“That can’t be helped, she is carrying a boy in her belly, this child can’t be buried with her, it must be induced!” Jin Mingming’s father, who had been teary-eyed, replied dryly and said to me and the director with a firm gaze, “My daughter has had an ultrasound in the county, the child in her belly is a little boy, he cannot be buried with his mother. This is a rule passed down from the old ancestors, there are risks, but also to induce labor. Even if the baby dies on the operating table, I don’t blame the hospital.”
“You are the patient’s husband, you say something too.” The director asked Wang Hui.
Wang Hui looked at his father-in-law: “I have no opinion, all listen to my father-in-law, everything is decided by his old man.”
“Then you sign this surgery notice.” I pushed the surgery notice to him.
He looked at his father-in-law again and hesitated to sign. “Why are you looking at me? Sign when I tell you to sign!” Jin Mingming’s father yelled at his son-in-law.
After Jin Mingming was hospitalized, all her relatives, seven aunts and eight uncles, and cousins came, and every day, 20 to 30 people would come to visit her in the hospital, each of them wiping their tears at the door of the ward before they entered, waiting for the tears on their faces to dry before they went in. After all, Jin Mingming is too young, may be in the process of inducing labor people will be no longer, now look at a glance less. Although the hospital had rules against so many people coming to visit, and was afraid that so many people coming to see her would cause mood swings, the director and our nurses didn’t try to stop them.
On the second day of her hospitalization, at 6:00 a.m., after we administered the medication, Jin Mingming had regular contractions and we sent her to the delivery room, before the induction of labor, her mother met me in the hallway and held my hand and wouldn’t let go.
“I have a daughter and a son, and my daughter is not far from home, 5 miles away. I have a disease or something, a day will run home three or four times to see me. Now that I am old, I need my daughter to take care of me the most, but I never thought I would end up in this situation. She always chats with me: Mother, when I get the baby done, I’ll hurry to work and buy you new clothes. My silly daughter!”
I nodded and told her that when checking in and handing over her condition, she did not let Jin Mingming know that she had advanced liver cancer, and what she said was only to induce labor, and that the child had problems and could not be wanted.
“The night of the hospitalization, Wang Hui went to Ming Ming to buy a life jacket, but are the kind worn by the elderly. I saw that it is not okay, on the spot, the son-in-law bought the life jacket thrown away, I do not let my daughter wear this away, well fashionable to buy.” The old lady wiped her tears, “After a day, I just went to the mall to buy the most fashionable clothes, high heels and tweed coats. These things are put in the car, in case, Mingming in the induction of labor can not be, wear this to go.”
On that day, Kim Mingming was successfully induced with a baby boy.
5
On March 2, I met the director in the elevator with a tired face.
“Director, is this because you had an operation last night?”
“Don’t mention it, it’s the same Zeng Chunhua, we resuscitated all night!”
I was shocked: “Didn’t Zeng Chunhua get better?”
“The abdominal cavity is bleeding again, last night and the chief of general surgery together with the operation, duodenum perforated, the intestine cut off a section. She still continues to have kidney failure, followed by symptoms of failure of various organs, and was resuscitated overnight.”
“How did it end up?” I wanted to hear better news from the director’s mouth.
The director shook his head: “Finally the brain stem bleeding, the brain department said conservative treatment, there is no sense of surgery ……”
I felt a pang of sadness: after Zeng Chunhua was transferred to the nephrology and ICU, her daughter and mother-in-law remained in the corridor of our department, and I would come to the old man to ask how Zeng Chunhua was doing before I left work these days – just before I left work on the 28th day when Zeng Chunhua’s condition was temporarily under control, I had just brought a bucket of 1-part neonatal milk powder She thanked me profusely: “Chief nurse, I’m telling you, Xiao Ya, her mother, is doing much better and will be discharged in a few days!”
At that time, Zeng Chunhua’s little daughter was sleeping sweetly, and when I heard that, I was happy for the family: “That’s good, what a good child!”
When the elevator reached the 16th floor, the director, yawning profusely, got off the elevator and went to keep an eye on the outpatient clinic, where she had to see 50 patients this morning.
When I came out after changing into my nurse’s uniform, Xiao Du told me, “Chief nurse, the mother-in-law of the patient Zeng Chunhua said she wanted to return the quilt, and I put it in the warehouse.”
I then realized that when I entered the department just now, I felt that something was missing in the corridor, and it turned out that Zeng Chunhua’s daughter and her mother-in-law had left. I looked back and saw that the ground where the grandchildren had slept had been cleaned up by the cleaners, as if they had not lived there.
On March 7, I met the head nurse of the brain department when I was conducting an in-hospital nurse skills check and asked her about Zeng Chunhua’s condition. She said that she had just been discharged from the hospital and that her family said she would be transferred to a hospital in Beijing with better conditions. We both also sighed a lot.
It was also the third day that Jin Mingming had been admitted to the hospital, and there were still many relatives gathered around her bedside. Her two daughters came too. The older one, 11, sat down on a chair and played a game on her mother’s cell phone, while the younger one, 5, clamored for her mother to take her to KFC – in our city, it seems that the only qualified parents are those who take their children to KFC on weekends. The children are proud of their parents for taking them to KFC, and it is their capital to show off to their buddies at school.
“I want to eat KFC, I want to eat KFC, Daddy you take me to eat KFC!” The child was still making noise, and Wang Hui sat by the hospital bed playing with his cell phone without saying a word, turning a deaf ear to his little daughter’s cries.
Finally, a relative could not stand it anymore and pulled the two crying children out of the ward: “Go, go, I’ll take you all to go and eat KFC.”
At that time, I was giving oxygen to Jin Mingming in the ward, and when I saw this scene, my nose got sore when I thought that their mother would never be able to go to KFC with them again.
A day later, Jin Mingming’s family said they did not want the patient to continue treatment and asked to be discharged – advanced liver cancer with multiple metastases, which might be empty for the rural family, but without treatment, they were watching Jin Mingming suffer from the disease. I sighed deeply in my heart as I watched the back of Mingming Jin being helped out of our department.
On March 9, our section made a follow-up visit, contacted Zeng Chunhua’s family, and got the news that made me even sadder: it turned out that Zeng Chunhua’s husband did not transfer her to a Beijing hospital with better conditions, but pulled the person home, and she died on March 7.
Looking down from the window of the department, the begonias planted around the hospital were in full bloom last week, but now they were fading in bits and pieces, their petals fluttering in the wind, not knowing where they were going.
I thought of the two pregnant women who were discharged from the hospital in the past few days: 28-year-old Zeng Chunhua and 31-year-old Jin Mingming, both of whom were as young as begonias.
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