Chapter 260: Life, death, and life being worse than death!

All doctors and nurses in the infectious diseases department would always be super vigilant while working. Even though they usually had very few patients to take care of, each patient would be more dangerous than the next. The danger of being exposed to an infectious disease would forever accompany working in the infectious diseases department.

Ordinary people would likely meet very few people who had AIDS in their lifetime. However, the doctors and nurses of this department had met far too many such patients. In this department, many patients' diseases would spread by blood transmission.

Most of these patients would receive medicine through IV drips. Of course, needles were really sharp, and you would need to be extra careful around them. But, there was still the risk of accidentally puncturing yourself one day, especially for the nurses. This danger was far too real for them. It would have nothing to do with professional experience.

This was why the turnover rate for nurses in the infectious diseases department was far higher than for nurses in any other department. If things continued like this, perhaps robots would have to replace nurses in the infectious diseases department one day. Maybe there would be no other choice. It wasn't like patients with infectious diseases could just be left alone without treatment!

AIDS was a slow and fatal infectious disease which was caused by HIV. AIDS and HIV were basically just like brothers. Neither of the two brothers would be easy to deal with. Once one of these two <anno data-annotation-id="ee4c07cd-1fbb-6087-d8e1-502dbe3a1dcd">diseases </anno>passed the incubation period, it would be impossible to truly cure either one with modern medicine.

To explain rather simply, they would destroy the human body's immune system.

For most illnesses, the hospital's treatment would only target the symptoms, meaning that the goal was to relieve the patient's discomfort rather than to treat the underlying illness itself.

To use a very simple example, let's take the common cold. For ordinary colds, no matter if you took medicine or not, you would actually recover at the same rate. Taking cold medicine would only relive your uncomfortable symptoms such as headache or congestion. What truly actually cured your cold would be certain cells and factors within your body.

These cells and factors would be the human body's immune system. However, HIV would directly destroy these cells and factors, making it so that even a simple cold could become fatal. That was why HIV was so scary. Not only would HIV be capable of destroying the immune system, it could also cause a type of skin tumor.

The AIDS debt collector patient currently in the infectious diseases department had a very classical example of AIDS. Due to the nature of AIDS, none of the doctors wanted to care for this patient. They were all afraid of AIDS. They all had families and their own lives to worry about. None of them were willing to sacrifice themselves meaninglessly.

Even government orders wouldn't have any effect here. It wasn't like the doctors could dress up like astronauts every time that they entered the department. Besides, Chasu City Hospital wasn't well off enough for such heavy protective equipment. So, the normal real situation in China was that people with infectious diseases such as AIDS would check themselves out of the hospital and basically wait for death. Whose fault was this?

This AIDS patient no longer had anything to do with his family. His family no longer cared about him. This was also why it was so easy for people with certain infectious diseases to become involved with criminal organizations. His AIDS symptoms were incredibly evident and severe. Not only was he unable to walk now, even eating food was difficult for him. Since nobody wanted to care for him, they could only take turns. Basically, whoever was on work shift for the day would be the doctor in charge of him.

This patient's situation was extremely terrible. First of all, there was his coughing. He had chronic coughing as well as a fever. He had breathing difficulties to the extent where cyanosis had appeared. There was also the issue of his head injury from Chen Feng stabbing him. The white bandages and blackening blood trails were in sharp contrast to his face which appeared purple from lack of oxygen. He sat on his bed with his head lowered as he tried his best to breathe. His loud sounds of having difficulty with breathing would really make others feel that death was approaching, especially at nighttime.

His rattling breaths sounded just like the approaching footsteps of the death god.

This patient was really skinny to begin with. On the second day of his hospitalization, he also started having diarrhea, which caused him to suddenly lose even more weight. All of his bones really showed through his skin. He seemed just like a starving refugee from Africa. His eyes were rolling until only eye whites were showing. It was obvious that he was in great pain!

Even scarier was his skin. There were large patches of scarlet or blueish skin lesions all over the patient's body. His skin was literally rotting and corroding all over. This was spreading unstoppably. His rotten flesh didn't actually bleed. Instead, murky pus slowly dripped out from his skin lesions, spattering onto his bedsheets with either red or yellow drops!

He kept his mouth constantly wide open due to his breathing difficulties. Even a professional doctor who was used to seeing scary sights would be frightened by this appearance because this patient had severe oral candidiasis. It would be starkly visible due to his wide-open mouth.

It appeared as if a large patch of white hairs were growing in his mouth, including many long flagella. As he breathed, the long white flagella would slowly wave, seeming as if they were body hairs on a demon, waving and trying to lure in the viewer.

This AIDS patient literally resembled a demon!

Zhang Fan was on a work shift today in the infectious department. When he entered the AIDS patient's patient room, a disgusting smell came right at him. This smell was sour and stinky, just like the smell of death. No, it truly was the smell of death. The human body would instinctively be highly repulsed by this smell. Any person would instinctively want to escape this place! However, Zhang Fan was a doctor, so he had to stay.

Even without getting into close contact with this AIDS patient, his lungs had already completely rotted. Large numbers of germs would be in what was left of this patient's lungs. Due to the breakdown of the patient's immune system, it wouldn't be strange no matter what germs or viruses were currently inside his lungs!

Zhang Fan was wearing two extremely heavy facial masks, to the point where he felt like he was about to suffocate. Even so, Zhang Fan didn't dare to breathe too much. He was still afraid that some germs would penetrate the facial masks if he inhaled with too much force!

"How are you feeling? Is there anything that you would like to eat?" Zhang Fan asked gently.

"Hup! Hup!" The patient shook his head with great difficulty. His lungs were just like a broken sieve!

"Then rest well!" There wasn't much else that Zhang Fan could say. At this point, the AIDS patient would only painfully wait for death. His entire body was in pain. He was twitching all over as the AIDS virus was already attacking nerves all over his body. Right now, he didn't even have the strength to commit suicide if he wanted to!

His eyes were protruding. His ashen-white eyes contained many white blotches. HIV hadn't spared even his eyes! He truly had it difficult. With great difficulty, he raised his right hand and glanced at Zhang Fan. Murky tears dripped from his eyes. Even his tears would contain viruses!

Zhang Fan didn't know what the patient wanted to express as he gradually raised his right hand. In the end, the patient slowly made a gesture of smoking! He then nodded towards Zhang Fan. This was basically his final wish before death!

If this had been an older doctor today, that doctor definitely wouldn't have wasted any time speaking to this patient. It wasn't that the doctor was cruel, but rather that it wouldn't be necessary. Asking and not asking wouldn't have a difference. Caring for someone right before death was supposed to be a matter for friends and relatives. Doctors were strangers in the end, after all.

Zhang Fan nodded slightly at the patient's imploring expression. Was Zhang Fan sympathetic? Of course, as they were both human. This patient was still a living human! To Zhang Fan, what a doctor was supposed to do didn't matter when it came to the end of life. This was about human nature. Fulfilling this request would be simple. Zhang Fan decided to satisfy the patient. This would be a final bit of warmth for the patient during his last bits of life!

Zhang Fan exited the patient's room. He didn't necessarily feel bad, but rather that this was cruel. When it came to life and death, the patient's being alive was truly suffering worse than death. Maybe the patient's own actions had brought about his current situation, but no matter what he had done, he didn't deserve such a punishment!

Zhang Fan took off his white doctor's coat and hung it on the back of the quarantine room. He then tossed his gloves, facial masks, and disposable shoes away into a container for medical waste. He washed his hands, disinfected his hands, and rubbed his hands as much as possible, yet he still felt as if the white flagella from the patient's mouth were growing on his hands!

"Brother Cheng, give me a cigarette," Zhang Fan asked an older resident doctor. Doctor Cheng was already in his 30s, yet was still only a resident doctor because he had failed his medical license examination several times before finally getting the medical license. He was a rather marginalized doctor who kept a very low profile.

He kept such a low profile that it was often that he would be forgotten when another doctor got married! This was the world of adults, not a fairy tale.

"Haha, Doctor Zhang, you smoke as well? I didn't know that. Here, let me light it up for you. Smoking is bad for your health!"

"Thanks, Brother Cheng, no need to light it up for me. I just need one cigarette! I only smoke on occasion." The border province was far too inept at running its own cigar factory. Its cigar factory actually went bankrupt! A large cigarette company from a major province then purchased the cigar factory. What a joke!

"That AIDS patient probably only has a few days left. How terrible!" Doctor Cheng exclaimed as he went over to his table to get a cigarette for Zhang Fan.

"Pretty much. I just went in to check on him. He definitely only has a few days left. His entire body is rotting."

"You really need to be careful. Don't go into his patient room unless it's really necessary. Sigh, it's all because of the fight. The person who stabbed him is really going to be in trouble!"

"Brother Cheng, how many of this type have you met before?"

"What do you mean? Patients with AIDS?"

"Yeah."

"Not many, but also not few. Ever since I joined the infectious diseases department, I've seen at least 10 such patients."

"How many years have you been in this department?"

"About five years. There's been around 15 patients who have been diagnosed with HIV. They always leave immediately after the diagnosis. This is my first time seeing a patient who's actually staying in the department. Any patient who gets diagnosed with HIV will seemingly disappear from the world as if they're nothing more than steam in the air."

"They won't receive treatment?"

"Ha! What treatment can we even give them? For HIV, the most important thing is antiviral therapy. All of the medicines used are biological agents. But at a hospital like ours, even using some cheap albumin requires the superintendent's signature. How would we possibly have such medicine? It's too high-level!"

"Oh. For this type of patient, what symptoms do they usually have when they come in for a diagnosis?"

"Fever, a low fever for a long period of time. Lymphedema, or repeated shingles outbreaks. I met one patient who kept repeatedly having shingles over and over. He wasn't able to get treated successfully at a private clinic, which was why he came here. The neurovascular director was far too astute. He instantly knew that something was wrong with this patient, so he transferred the patient over to the infectious diseases department. He even called me beforehand to tell me to be careful. Back then, I was younger and didn't know what to be careful of."

Doctor Cheng lit a cigarette for himself and started smoking as he continued, "That patient was a business owner. I could tell that he was really rich. He was also really good with social etiquette. He gave me some smokes, shook my hand, and was really polite. At that time, I had just received my medical license, and was really poor, and his smokes were excellent smokes, so I chatted a lot with him."

"And then, his HIV was diagnosed?" Zhang Fan asked the obvious.

"Yeah. That patient didn't lack money at all. He said that I should give him a full physical examination and check for everything possible. He probably had an idea of what he had, but felt too awkward to say it, so..."

Doctor Cheng slowly spat out a cloud of smoke as he said, "When I received the checkup report that said he had HIV, I almost cut off my own hand. Even though I knew in my head that HIV can't spread through something like a handshake, you have no idea how strong of a sense of rejection I felt back then. Sigh! I didn't sleep well for an entire week. I kept having bad dreams every night. The dream was always the same. I was waiting at the laboratory to have my own blood drawn! Is that scary or what?"

Zhang Fan took the cigarette, put on his facial masks, surgical cap, shoe covers, gloves, and special doctor's coat for the infectious diseases department, and returned to the AIDS patient's room to give the patient his requested cigarette.

However, the AIDS patient no longer needed the cigarette! He would never need anything again!