CHAPTER 315: 315 ODD EPILEPSY

(Thank you, dear friends Silent Defender, Iron Poet 83, Jessica in Sunshine, Your Friend??? Online, Iron Pipe Lu, Mangmang Liu, and Tearless Love for the votes of support.)

Although there were also CT patients from the outpatient department, there weren’t many at the moment. The technician was quick with the CT scan. Even before the images were out, Liu Banxia could already see them.

Based on his medical knowledge, the cranial area appeared normal. He didn’t see any signs of bleeding, edema, or tumors.

"From what we can tell for now, your brain seems to be fine. We’ll proceed with an EEG. We’ll try to make the test longer to capture as much data as possible," Liu Banxia said.

"Can I just lie semi-reclined? I’m afraid I might fall asleep if I lie flat," the patient said.

"Sure, as long as the device is properly connected." Liu Banxia nodded with a smile.

"Are you worried you might get a headache if you fall asleep? Actually, it would be helpful if that happened; we could capture the signals then," he added.

"I usually don’t have a headache in the afternoon. I’m just worried it would be embarrassing to fall asleep at the hospital." The patient shook her head.

"No worries, sleep if you feel like it. Doctor Liang, please help apply the electrodes," Liu Banxia said.

"Actually, you’ve been quite cooperative today. Some patients really resist undergoing instrumental examinations, always thinking we doctors are just trying to make more money by ordering more tests," he continued.

"Sometimes, we really don’t have a choice. We aren’t magicians. Some illnesses are internal; we can’t just see them with our naked eyes..."

"Doctor, what were you saying?" The patient interrupted Liu Banxia mid-sentence.

"Um... I said we aren’t magicians." Liu Banxia paused for a moment.

"Magicians don’t exist," the patient chuckled.

"Did you miss what we were just saying?" Liu Banxia asked seriously.

"Yeah, I didn’t hear clearly," the patient replied.

"When did you stop hearing us clearly?" Liu Banxia pressed.

"Was it when you started putting these things on me? I can’t quite recall..." the patient said, trailing off as if realizing something was odd.

"Hmm... is it a problem with your hearing itself?" Liu Banxia asked after a moment’s thought.

"No, it was more like I suddenly couldn’t hear anything. It’s hard to describe," the patient replied after thinking carefully.

"Alright, let’s proceed with the EEG first. You all chat with her and see if this hearing issue occurs again," Liu Banxia instructed.

This was a new symptom. Even though it seemed ear-related, it could also be connected to the cause of the patient’s headaches.

Liu Banxia’s original intention was for Liang Xiaolin and the others to chat with the patient while he observed. However, he quickly realized they needed more practice with their conversational skills.

A proper conversation needed to flow. What Liang Xiaolin and the others were doing was just awkward small talk, jumping between topics without any real engagement, completely ruining the atmosphere for a chat.

"What does your company do?" Liu Banxia took over the conversational duties.

"We deal in children’s products. We’re distributors. Much of the milk powder and infant products you see on e-commerce platforms are supplied by our company," the patient said.

"If you want to buy milk powder or supplies for your child, I can help. The discounts might not be as deep as during major e-commerce sales events, but the prices will still be lower than usual."

"I’ll keep that in mind for the future. As a single man without even a girlfriend, I don’t really have a use for them right now," Liu Banxia said with a laugh.

"How is that possible? Isn’t it easy for doctors to find girlfriends? You have good working conditions, high salaries, and if there’s a doctor in the family, they can save on medical bills and get better care when sick," the patient said.

"A colleague of mine had a baby a couple of months ago. She couldn’t even get an appointment at the Maternity and Child Health Hospital of Binhai Medical College. In the end, she had to pull some strings to get into the municipal hospital."

"That’s all superficial," Liu Banxia said. "Just look at them. They’re about your age and haven’t even graduated yet."

"Unless they neglect their studies to find partners while still in school, they’ll likely have to rush into marriage right after graduation. I’d bet that even in three or four years, they might still not be married."

"Teacher Liu, why couldn’t we get married? Our standards aren’t that high," Xu Yino retorted, unconvinced.

"Who would want a boyfriend who’s always working overtime and whom they barely get to see? If their skills are just average, it might be tolerable. But if they’re even slightly more competent, they’ll be called into the hospital even on their days off," Liu Banxia said with a laugh.

"Even though you no longer need to go through standardized residency training, you’ll still need to put in extra effort during your time as resident doctors. You all know what hospital working hours are like, don’t you?"

"Teacher Liu, what am I going to do if I can’t get married?" Xu Yino started to worry.

"You’re so beautiful, what’s there to worry about? You’ll meet the right person eventually. Don’t let your teacher scare you," the patient chuckled.

"Girls don’t have trouble getting married; it all depends on their expectations. Even... we, who aren’t considered beautiful, aren’t worried. Why are you all staring at me like that?"

"Did you feel anything unusual just now?" Liu Banxia asked.

The patient shook her head, looking puzzled. "No, we were just chatting, weren’t we?"

"Yes, we were chatting, but you had a lapse of about three seconds. It could be understood as a seizure, but it was very brief, and then you recovered," Liu Banxia said.

"It wasn’t that you didn’t hear us clearly just now; rather, you experienced a brief seizure, and that’s why you couldn’t hear. It’s not an issue with your ears."

"Doctor Liang, quickly call Zhang Xiao from Neurosurgery and Peng Bo from Neurology. The EEG shows signs of neurological damage. Qing Kewa, draw blood for a full panel blood test and a urinalysis. Xu Yino, connect the ECG monitor."

Upon hearing Liu Banxia’s commands, everyone sprang into action.

They had all seen the patient’s reaction. To anyone not in the medical field, it would have seemed very strange. The patient was mid-sentence when her eyes suddenly rolled upwards for a moment; then she returned to normal and continued talking as if nothing had happened.

"You two take a look at the EEG first. Blood has been drawn and sent for testing. She has a nearly three-year history of headaches, and we’ve observed two brief seizures today, each lasting about 3 to 5 seconds." Liu Banxia handed the printed EEG strips to Zhang Xiao and Peng Bo, who had just arrived.

"There’s evidence of neurological damage. Has a brain CT been done?" Peng Bo asked after a glance.

"Yes, it has. I’ll pull it up for you," Liu Banxia replied and began working on the computer.

"The patient’s headaches are intermittent, typically severe when she wakes up in the morning," Liu Banxia added.

"The preliminary diagnosis is brain injury caused by epilepsy. I personally recommend a medically induced coma," Peng Bo said after reviewing the information.

"Although the brain CT currently shows no abnormalities, each seizure causes some degree of brain injury. If this damage accumulates past a certain threshold, not only will the patient suffer more, but it could also lead to irreversible neurological damage."

"At that point, it’s more likely to cause organic lesions, threatening her life. Inducing a medical coma can reduce the frequency of seizures, giving us enough time to find the underlying cause of her condition."

"Doctors, can you explain that to me more clearly?" the patient asked.

"In other words, your headaches are a side effect of epilepsy, which is caused by some underlying condition," Liu Banxia explained.

"These seizures have already damaged your brain. Each episode causes a small amount of harm. The situation is quite serious now. Given the long duration of your headaches, we don’t know how many seizures you’ve actually experienced."

"Also, you should contact your family now. If we don’t induce a coma, any subsequent seizure could be life-threatening. During the process of inducing a coma, certain medical procedures will require authorization from your immediate family."

"Doctor, is... is this brain cancer?" the patient asked, her voice trembling.

Liu Banxia shook his head. "We haven’t found any organic changes in the brain, so we need to thoroughly investigate the cause. Many factors can trigger seizures, but it’s uncommon for seizures to cause brain damage like in your case."

"The reason your headaches weren’t diagnosed earlier is likely because of this. Typical epileptic patients experience convulsions. Your seizures are very brief, so they’re easily overlooked."

"This is the consensus among the three of us doctors. The sooner you decide, the better. A medically induced coma can offer your brain a degree of protection."

"Okay, I’ll contact my family right away," the patient said hurriedly.

"Brothers, what do you two think is causing this?" Liu Banxia asked once they had stepped outside.

"It’s hard to say yet. Let’s wait for the blood test results. They’ve been done, right?" Peng Bo asked.

"Yes, they should be out soon," Liu Banxia replied.

"Based on the current findings, it doesn’t seem to be related to any organic brain lesions; that’s not the cause. It’s been almost three years; if there were, the CT scan wouldn’t have missed it," Zhang Xiao commented.

"The final diagnosis will largely depend on you two. If you find any structural abnormalities in the brain, I can help assess surgical options. By the way, what’s the story with the wound on her head?"

Liu Banxia gave a wry smile. "Brother Zhang, you’ve reminded me. The wound on her head was likely also caused by a fall during a brief seizure."

"That means she’s had three seizures in a short period. That’s a high frequency. If we extrapolate that to a 24-hour period, how many would that be?"

"It’s precisely because the seizures are so frequent that they’re causing brain damage. However, the priority now is to find the cause of these seizures. We’ll have to investigate step by step, eliminating possibilities one by one," Peng Bo said.

He had never encountered such a peculiar case of epilepsy. Although determining the root cause seemed to fall outside his direct neurological purview for now, the patient’s condition had certainly piqued his professional interest.

He truly had never seen a case like this. It was a testament to Liu Banxia’s keen observation skills that he’d spotted it. Nearly three years had passed, and even her own family, who lived with her, hadn’t noticed anything.