This Doctor Is Too Wealthy

The problem lies with the old man!

Considering what Li Nating had just said, Li Nating should not be punished for this; the mistake wasn’t hers.

However, Du Heng didn’t say anything immediately. Instead, he continued to ask the patient, ”Sir, are you here alone? Aren’t any family members with you?”

With continuous questioning, the old man became a little more lucid. ”My son and daughter-in-law went to work, my grandson is in graduate school, and my Old Partner passed away early. I’m alone. Nobody to accompany me, and I don’t need any company.”

”At your age and being alone in the hospital, if you find anything inconvenient, just call our nurses and let them help you.”

”Thank you, doctor. But you don’t look like the doctor who was treating me. Has there been a change?”

Du Heng smiled. ”I’m the Dean of the Health Clinic. I just came to ask if you needed any help.”

”Oh, the Dean! So young. But I don’t need any help. I’m still quite spirited. I can move and go to the toilet on my own. I don’t want to trouble you all.”

”Then you should rest. Just ring the bell if you need anything.”

After leaving the hospital room, Du Heng said to the two women, ”Alright, you can go about your business.” He didn’t mention the complaint at all.

Wang Lili and Li Nating weren’t fools. They instantly understood Du Heng’s attitude towards handling the situation. This matter should just be considered closed.

Du Heng returned to the consultation room, crumpled the complaint form into a ball, and threw it into the trash can. He picked up his needle tool kit and went to the ward.

Today’s treatment focused primarily on the patient with facial paralysis who had been misdiagnosed.

After several days of treatment, the patient’s previous condition had greatly improved, especially the symptoms of being unable to close his eyes, a crooked mouth, and a stiff tongue.

However, the patient’s main issue now wasn’t facial paralysis, but other problems caused by the wind medicine he had been mistakenly given. This was the most critical part.

Firstly, there was his heart. Previously, his pulse would stop seven or eight times within fifty beats. This had improved after several days of treatment. Now, when palpating one hundred beats across both wrists, it only occasionally stopped once or twice, which was a significant improvement.

”Doctor, my face has recovered now, and I can speak too. Can I go home?” Although the patient’s speech was still slightly slurred, it was clear enough for people to understand what he was saying.

Du Heng released the patient’s wrist after taking his pulse and looked at the patient’s tongue coating. He casually asked, ”You’ve only just started to show improvement. Why are you in such a hurry to go home?”

Instead of showing any happiness about his recovery, the patient’s face was filled with worry. ”Doctor Du, you don’t know. I’m a truck driver. The truck was bought with a loan, and I have to make payments every month. Moreover, both of my children are in school, and my mother needs to take medication constantly. We haven’t saved much money these past few years.

Now that I’m hospitalized, the few thousand yuan we had at home have all been spent on my treatment. And I’ve been out of work for three months already. I’m worried about how I’ll make next month’s truck payment. Every extra day I stay here, the stone in my heart grows heavier. It’s almost crushing the breath out of me.”

Every family has its own struggles; life isn’t easy for anyone.

Du Heng understood the man’s situation. He also hoped the man could be discharged today and resume driving to earn money tomorrow.

But that wasn’t possible.

When Du Heng had taken his pulse just now, it was still thin, rough, and weak. When he asked the patient how he felt, the man said he always felt qi moving back and forth in his stomach. Combining these two signs and comparing them with the initial symptoms, it indicated a yin deficiency in the lower jiao, with the Chong Mai restless in its position.

With the ailment affecting the Chong Mai, among other issues, this one point alone meant Du Heng didn’t dare discharge the patient.

This was because the Chong Mai is intimately related to reproductive function.

If a man has a problem with his Chong Mai, whether congenital or acquired, it will lead to issues with reproductive function.

Looking at the patient’s current condition—yin deficiency below repelling yang above, and an unstable Chong Mai—if this continued long-term, the man would lose his pleasure and dignity as a man.

And according to his registered age, the patient was only 41 years old, still very young.

Du Heng immediately informed the patient of the possible consequences. ”You can earn money anytime. Even if it’s delayed by a month, it won’t be fatal. But your body is a different matter. If permanent damage occurs, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

After hearing Du Heng’s explanation, the man’s face turned deathly pale. He had always thought his illness was confined to his face, just facial paralysis. He hadn’t expected the most troublesome part to be ”down there.”

He immediately stopped talking about wanting to be discharged and obediently followed Du Heng’s arrangements.

Seeing this, Du Heng stopped chatting with the man, afraid that if he continued, he might scare him into impotence.

Returning to the consultation room, Du Heng reflected on the man’s illness. He opened his computer and typed out the Sanjia Fumai DecoctionTriple-Armored Pulse-Restorative Decoction, intended to greatly nourish true yin, subdue Yang, extinguish wind, and soothe the collaterals. To the house, he added red ginseng to boost original qi, and then amethyst and magnetite to settle the Chong Mai and coordinate the upper and lower body.

After checking the house again to ensure there were no problems, Du Heng left his office and went upstairs to find Wang Lili. ”I’ve just written a new house for Bed 16. Please see to it that it’s decocted.”

”Any special requirements?”

”No, just decoct it normally. We’ll switch to this medicine at noon.”

”Alright, I understand.”

Seeing Wang Lili nod, Du Heng entered the hospital room once more and approached the man. ”I’ve changed your medicine; we’ll switch at noon. Now, I’ll give you acupuncture.”

The patient was more cooperative than before. As soon as Du Heng finished speaking, he had already lain down in the standard position.

But as Du Heng administered the needles, the man couldn’t help but ask, ”Doctor Du, didn’t you only insert needles in three places before? Why does it feel like you’ve inserted many more this time?”

His hands moving deftly, Du Heng said softly as he lifted, thrust, and twirled the needles, ”To help you recover more quickly, this time I’ve added nine acupoints, including Qianzheng, Cheche, Dicang, and Chengjiang.”

Just as he finished speaking, the patient was about to say something more, but Du Heng spoke first, ”Don’t talk. Keep your facial muscles stable, and don’t fidget.”

As Du Heng finished speaking, he placed his hand just above the patient’s eyes. Startled, the patient quickly closed them and then felt a cool sensation around his eyes.

Du Heng stopped talking to the patient and began to concentrate on administering the acupuncture.

After needling the BL-57 and fish tail acupoint, he picked up the Plum Blossom Needle and lightly tapped it on the originally numb area on the left side of his head.

He tapped lightly—once, twice, three times...

The problem with this patient was that the previous doctor had mistaken internal wind for external wind and then used medicine for external wind to treat internal wind, resulting in injury to both his qi and yin.

Most diseases of the central nervous system in modern medicine could be attributed to the category of ”internal wind” in traditional Chinese medicine. These could often be treated simply by nourishing water to foster wood, and subduing, pacifying, and extinguishing wind.

Therefore, studying Western medicine was indeed very helpful for traditional Chinese medicine, provided one studied it thoroughly and understood it through mutual verification.

”Treat wind by first treating blood; when blood flows, wind will naturally cease.” This was Du Heng’s current principle for treating wind diseases. He followed the path of nurturing righteous qi to make pathogenic factors retreat on their own, prescribing houses that tonified qi, nourished blood, and activated blood.

This approach and treatment method had now been validated in the inpatients he was treating for paralysis and hemiplegia.

However, due to individual constitutions and the need for syndrome differentiation based on specific etiologies, medication had to be tailored and could not be generalized.

And this very point had become the biggest obstacle to Du Heng’s ambition to promote the treatment of stroke.

While Du Heng was deep in thought, summarizing his findings and treating the patient, he suddenly heard a conversation from the sick bed opposite him.

”Nurse, what medicine are you giving me?”

”Dr. Yu said this morning that you have a bit of inflammation, so he added a bottle of anti-inflammatory drugs.”

”Oh, so where did this medicine come from?”

”You bought it with your money.”

The nurse being questioned was Zheng Yan, the youngest of the three who had returned from the Township Government. She was 19 and a graduate of the Municipal Health School.

Usually cheerful and not one to cause trouble, her answer this time was relaxed and rather nonchalant.

But hearing it made Du Heng’s eyebrows twitch.

After finishing the treatment, Du Heng packed his things. He then went out and called Wang Lili into his office.

Considering this recent event, on top of the earlier incident with Li Nating, he felt it was necessary to have a meeting with Wang Lili, the de facto head of the Nursing Department, and tighten the reins.