Editor’s Note:
This article is authorized by the [True Story Plan]. The original text was completed in 2011 under the title [Abandoned Children], and the relevant guidelines for some of the mentioned treatments have been updated.
This is a story that [ignorance] makes people lament:
Ignorance of the [possibility] between hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy and cerebral palsy, ignorance of the good rehabilitation effect that early intervention of cerebral palsy can achieve, and even ignorance of the life value of newborns.
All this is not something patients can simply get from [what the search engine said].
What kind of life should be saved? How can these medical and ethical considerations communicate with patients?
What should I do when doctors and patients cannot reach an agreement?
A young father who dreamed of a dignified life and a dedicated doctor were divided over the life and death of a child with cerebral palsy. Chen Li wanted to give up his son, but the doctor saved him.
1
Chen Li decided to beat a doctor. The doctor saved his child five days ago.
For five days, the middle-aged man who became a second father was in an extreme fear of an unknown fate. At about 10: 00 a.m. on November 8, 2011, the fear was ignited by a medical certificate and quickly turned into anger: his son was diagnosed with [hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy].
He began to hate Luo Jun, an obstetrician and gynecologist in a hospital in Shenzhen, who let the child and the person who let the child survive in the world.
Holding the fist of the medical certificate, he rushed to the seventh floor of the hospital inpatient department. Luo Jun is sitting in the office chatting with the patient.
Chen Li stepped forward, without saying anything, swung his right fist to knock the thin Luo Jun down from his chair and added another foot.
Luo Jun struggled to run out of the office, Chen Li rushed up and threw himself on the ground again. The two men were entangled in the corridor full of temporary hospital beds and expectant mothers. After a brief consternation, Luo Jun’s colleagues just reacted and pulled the two apart.
I’m going to spend my life with a fool! Chen Li cursed Luo Jun across the crowd, [I said I didn’t want children, why should I be rescued? ]
Luo Jun, whose right hand and knee began to bleed, saw clearly who beat him. Luo Jun was also angry and shouted forward: “You father can not have children, I am a doctor can’t from ruin! ]
Nearly 100 pregnant women and their families, doctors and nurses in obstetrics and gynecology saw a bizarre and almost absurd scene: a doctor was beaten for saving someone else’s child; One father hit people because his child was rescued.
The police came later, The two men were taken to the police station for investigation. Chen Li wrote a letter of apology at the request of the police. Although he admitted in the letter that “hitting people cannot solve the problem”, he still complained secretly to the doctor: [Dr. Luo stressed to me many times that the child would be born with encephalopathy… I said I didn’t want the child, but Dr. Luo still tried his best to rescue it.]
[If from ruin, it is really a doctor’s dereliction of duty.] Luo Jun felt wronged and angry when he was beaten inexplicably. [He is not a human being! More unworthy of being a father! ]
On November 10, Luo Jun called the police again, informing the police [a little life that has been saved hard, I hope to grow up safely] and saying bluntly [worried that Chen Li will strangle the child].
2
Before the baby was born, Chen Li always believed that welcoming life was “a wonderful journey”. However, the night the baby fell to the ground, it plunged him into chaos, like “a time bomb planted a root in his mind”.
The man who has just passed the age of standing has actually had a 4-year-old son, who was born with his ex-wife and was brought by his mother in his hometown of Xiangtan, Hunan. Divorced in 2008 and remarried last year, his wife Wang Jing soon became pregnant. What Chen Li is waiting for is the second child. In his view, this is also the [another departure] of life.
At about 3: 00 a.m. on November 3, his wife suddenly suffered from severe abdominal pain. Chen Li hurriedly drove the 5,000-dollar used car to the hospital with a thud.
Luo Jun was the doctor on duty that night. He immediately found the problem: the fetal heart rate was slow, the fetal heart rate was only half of the normal level, and the 3-degree contaminated amniotic fluid was brown, yellow and thick-these were all signs of fetal distress, and risks such as brain hypoxia and acidosis would follow.
Luo Jun immediately told Chen Li that the child needs to be rescued immediately. Due to extreme lack of oxygen, cerebral palsy may eventually occur.
It is a professional habit for doctors to tell patients about the “most serious possibility” and is the “safest and most responsible” practice. However, he also stressed that the most serious [does not necessarily mean that it will happen] and [the tenacity and will of babies to survive often exceed adults].
However, for Chen Li, who is in a state of panic, the word [cerebral palsy] has struck him with lightning. In his little medical knowledge, cerebral palsy means quadriplegia, mental retardation and slurred speech for a lifetime, which is equivalent to idiot, fool and basket case.
Luo Jun took out an obstetric consent form, Hand it into Chen Li’s hand. Chen Li said, At that time, he had vaguely produced the idea of “not having this child”, but at the same time, Li Liyun, a pregnant woman who had to have a caesarean section a few years ago but her husband refused to sign the operation form, flashed through his mind. The terrible consequences of the death of both mother and child in the report made him sign the consent form [shivering]. [When he got to the hospital, the life of his wife and child was in the hands of the doctor, and I would sign everything in what.]
Chen Li said that in the elevator from the 7th floor to the 23rd floor of the operating room, Luo Jun once again mentioned in front of his wife the possible serious consequences of excessive fetal hypoxia. The word [cerebral palsy] once again pierced his ear, completely penetrating his psychological bottom line.
3
Luo Jun, who has been a doctor for 11 years, recalled that even after more than 1,000 operations, the early morning was still a [struggle rescue] of [the most difficult, tortuous but miraculous]. Chen Li, outside the operating room, spent the [longest, difficult and painful] night of his life.
At about 4: 00 a.m., Wang Jing was sent to the operating room. Luo Jun judged at that time that the umbilical cord thrombosis caused the fetus to suffer from hypoxia, and once the hypoxia exceeded eight minutes, the risk of infant death was extremely high. Luo Jun decided to carry out caesarean section and remove the baby as soon as possible. However, at this time, the uterine opening of the parturient was lucky to open quickly and had all the conditions for natural labor.
Half an hour later, a baby boy gave birth, weighing 4.5 kg.
After the whole body of the fetus was delivered, Luo Jun wiped off the amniotic fluid for him, took measures to keep warm, and carried out the assessment of the health status of the newborn commonly used in China-Ashi score. Good luck did not continue: the newborn’s breathing and heartbeat were abnormal, the whole body was pale as paper, and the score was only 2 points, while below 3 points, it was a severe asphyxia state.
The situation is critical, following the convention, Luo Jun motioned the nurse to inform the family member Chen Li, and immediately transferred to the rescue of the child. To this day, he is still deeply impressed by one detail: due to extreme lack of oxygen, the child has completely lost muscle tension, but his small limbs are still trembling slightly, his mouth is wide open, and he is trying to inhale.
[Even the weakest child has the desire to breathe.] Luo Jun said, then the thought in his mind was: I want to save him.
At this time, the child’s father, Chen Li, stood outside the corridor, roaring past and present difficulties [like address unknown] in his mind. He weighed over and over again and struggled [to make a decision].
Originally, Chen Li regards the upcoming second child as all the hope of life, just as he undertakes as the second son in his family. Chen Li once had a brother who ran out of the village before finishing junior high school. He thought of working in Xinjiang and lost him halfway. His father turned around China several times, but he didn’t find it. He came back to vomit blood and died in a few years.
His mother supported him to finish college, and he also carried all his mother’s hopes: he must get ahead.
After graduating from university in 2002, He came to Shenzhen, In a factory to do equipment maintenance. 3000 yuan per month. After several years of work, married and gave birth to children, he felt more and more [living like a walking corpse]. He also wanted to go home, open an Internet cafe, variety of vegetables, the family leisurely. But every time I think of my mother suffering from coronary heart disease and looking forward to her children all day long, I can only give up and continue to return to the 500 yuan rent hut.
He finally collapsed. In 2008, when his daughter-in-law made his mother cry, he divorced angrily. In such a bad mood, he simply quit his job. He stayed in a dark room all day and did nothing. After being closed for more than half a year, he finally [decided to start over].
Holding [would rather be a business wolf than a working dog. I would rather sleep on the floor than be a boss], Chen Li and his friends started a small company in 2009 to rent computers. Later, I also met my wife online and got married quickly and became pregnant.
Today’s days are not easy either. Borrowing money to buy computers and renting them to enterprises, as soon as the cost is recovered, the computers will depreciate and become unusable. I can only borrow money all the time and repay the money all the time. His wife often laughs at him as a “negative man”-an old man whose assets are always negative and whose life is depreciating.
But Chen Li always thought, “It’s a new beginning, isn’t it?” He was looking forward to the healthy birth of the child, The company’s business can also slowly stabilize. What he did not expect was that The doctor’s judgment of “cerebral palsy” can easily pierce the strong shell he tries to smear, revealing the dark background of life’s already fragile. He is afraid that every month [requiring thousands or even tens of thousands of treatment costs] cerebral palsy children will drag the family and the children themselves back to the life of “walking corpse”.
He is afraid that his already [lost security of stability] life will become more and more precarious due to his children’s [unstable future].
The operation is still going on, but the father has decided to give up.
4
After waiting for about half an hour, with a thud, a nurse opened the door, came out and told Chen Li: “Your wife gave birth to a baby boy, but he was in critical condition and did not breathe or beat.” Chen Li thought the child was failing, sighed and said: “I don’t want the child, you don’t want to rescue it.” The nurse paused and said to go back to inform the doctor and walk back to the operating room.
He said that hearing the door closing was like hearing [a place in his heart collapsed].
It was Luo Jun who asked the nurse to come out to inform Chen Li. This is still his professional habit of [telling his family the worst possibility]. However, the rescue on the operating table continued after the five or six minutes when the messenger nurse entered and left the operating room through several iron gates with strict security checks and the [death wish] was delivered to the operating table on the way.
This five or six minutes is also a critical period for the treatment of newborn hypoxia. Once the time window is closed, the baby will suffocate to death. Luo Jun wants to save the child, there is another important reason: in the more than 1,000 children he delivered, only one child died young, the reason is also umbilical cord thrombosis caused by infant suffocation.
Luo Jun recalled that following the previous skilled operation procedure, he first cleaned up the respiratory tract and adopted a 15-degree head-low and foot-high position to reduce the curvature of the throat and trachea, and gently inserted a sputum suction tube into the pharynx to remove mucus and amniotic fluid. Then, tracheal intubation is carried out, amniotic fluid is sucked out with low pressure under the direct vision of laryngoscope, and then the catheter is slowly inserted into the infant’s glottis to suck amniotic fluid and secretion in the deep part of respiratory tract, so as to make respiratory tract unobstructed and promote spontaneous breathing. The last is cardiac compression, using double thumb method to press the middle sternum 90 times per minute…
Soon, Luo Jun saw a scene that made his heart surge: the child’s nose moved gently and began to breathe autonomously; Under the action of blood circulation restoration, the skin color also quickly turned red, almost for an instant, [like a miracle], Luo Jun said, a pale child became ruddy, like a full apple.
Ashley’s score also reached 6. Because the trachea was inserted into his mouth, the child did not cry. In the quiet operating room, Luo Jun heard many people heaving a sigh of relief. He looked up at the pediatrician, anesthesiologist and midwife, smiled at each other knowingly, and his heart fell down. [The child was saved].
5
When the nurse told Chen Li’s idea of [stopping rescuing the child], Luo Jun’s first reaction was [consternation]: [the parents surrendered before the child gave up.] Then he regarded Chen Li’s idea as absurd: [the child is alive, if I pull out the child’s trachea again, it would be tantamount to killing the child.]
The nurse walked out of the operating room with the child in her arms and was ready to transfer to the neonatal ward for further treatment. Outside the corridor, Chen Li saw a scene that shocked him equally: [the child came out alive.] Chen Li recalled that at that time he froze and [could only accept the reality].
Cerebral palsy caused by severe hypoxia cannot be found and diagnosed immediately, and even needs to be observed for weeks or even longer. This caused the father to fall into extreme anxiety for more than ten days. Every day he would find Luo Jun and the children’s doctor and ask: “Is there any problem with my son’s brain?” ]
In the next five days, Chen Li met his son twice. The first time was for an ultrasound examination. When he took off his clothes, the child only cried [wow] and went to bed the next second. He panicked: Is it a manifestation of cerebral palsy?
The second time was the MRI examination on November 8. Seeing the diagnosis of [severe hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy], Chen Li’s accumulated emotions broke out instantly for many days and eventually led to the conflict with Luo Jun.
Now at home, Chen Li felt that his wife would also be unable to sleep all night, and even secretly search the Internet for relevant information about [treatment of cerebral palsy children] and [welfare home]. Mother-in-law who works in other places also came to take care of the children. From time to time, the old man would take a small bell and shake it in front of his son to see if his eyes would follow.
Chen Li still felt that Luo Jun [had no medical ethics]: [You have said many times that the child was born with cerebral palsy. Then you let him die naturally, and I may suffer for a while. In two years, my wife will recuperate and want a healthy one again, and the whole family will be different.]
To this, Luo Jun felt angry: [I was just saying “possibility” and did not draw a final conclusion. It was you, the father, who sentenced the child to death first.]
According to Shenzhen’s regulations, if you want to give up the treatment of newborns suffering from serious malformation defects and other diseases, you must have the relevant identification of the Family Planning Office or the examination reports of two 3A hospitals in Shenzhen.
Luo Jun later went online and found that some people were also scolding him: to [understand Chen Li’s difficulties] [it is not easy to support cerebral palsy] [long pain is better than short pain].
Luo Jun, who felt [very wronged], thought of the “Little Yueyue Incident” in Foshan. He asked: “Just like Little Yueyue, she has been crushed and may be disabled. Do I still need to save her? If the answer is no, then why should we spurn those passers-by from ruin? ]
One day, her 7-year-old daughter learned about this and asked Luo Jun, “Dad, why did you bully someone else’s dad?” [Luo Jun replied: [Dad didn’t bully him. Dad saved a child and was bullied by someone else’s father.]
(Note: Chen Li, Luo Jun and Wang Jing are pseudonyms at the request of the interviewee)