godfather of surgery

Chapter 1218 This is not a math problem

As expected, Adams had difficulty falling asleep at night. He needed two sleeping pills to fall asleep, but even after taking the pills, his mind was filled with all sorts of bizarre dreams.

He woke up at around 5 a.m. the next day and looked out the window until 7 a.m. When breakfast was brought to him from the restaurant, his wife comforted him and told him not to worry. She said that they had not received any notice to cancel the experiment, which meant that the experiment could proceed as scheduled, but Adams still did not believe it.

He hurriedly ate some breakfast and then sat in the ward waiting. He was very uneasy, always afraid that what he had held tightly would fly away. The psychological shadow that the last time had left him was too great.

Every time a nurse came by, he would ask, "My experimental treatment today wasn't canceled, was it?"

The nurses might find his question strange. Does he not want to undergo the experimental treatment and is he still hesitant, hoping to cancel the experimental treatment?

To his question, the nurse could only reply, "We haven't received any notification yet."

"If you receive any notification, be sure to let me know," Adams instructed the nurse. His intention was to inform him of any changes promptly so that he wouldn't have to endure the agonizing wait.

However, if the nurse asks too many times, she will naturally start to wonder if he has not fully accepted the experimental treatment and wants it canceled, but is hesitant. If there is a passive reason for cancellation, he will be happy to accept it.

By 10 o'clock, Adams could no longer contain himself and called the nurses' station again to ask, "Has my experimental treatment been canceled?"

The nurse was surprised: "We haven't received any notification. Are you now regretting participating in the experiment and want to cancel? You can cancel at any time before the experimental treatment. If you are sure you need to cancel, I can notify the doctors at the research institute."

Adams immediately explained, “No, no, no, I mean I’m worried about being canceled, so I’m asking you repeatedly.”

His wife, who was standing nearby, couldn't stand it anymore and told him, "You can just wait quietly. Disturbing the nurses so often can easily lead to misunderstandings, which will be detrimental to your treatment. Even I think you're still hesitant and want the experiment canceled."

“No, that’s not what I meant. I’m just worried, so I need to check every now and then to make sure my experimental treatment hasn’t been canceled,” Adams tried to defend himself.

“Okay, can you be quiet for once? You’ve made thirty-seven phone calls and gone to the bathroom thirty times since you woke up this morning. You’ve been doing those two things ever since you got out of bed…” Adams’ wife said.

Some people tend to secrete diuretic hormone when they are nervous, which can cause them to urinate frequently and go to the bathroom often.

Adams didn't know why he had become like this. He couldn't control himself, he really couldn't control himself. He would feel anxious if he didn't make a phone call, and his bladder would feel unbearably full if he didn't go to the bathroom to empty it.

In his agony, he finally heard footsteps, the footsteps of many people, and two nurses walked in.

"Mr. Adams, the K treatment is about to begin. Please lie down."

"Really?" Adams became excited again, feeling that he could walk and there was no need to lie down.

In fact, K's treatment was completed in this ward, but he had no idea that. He didn't listen at all when the doctors or nurses told him the details of K's treatment, especially when Yang Ping talked to him and explained the details of K's treatment in detail. But he had no mind to listen. He only had one thought at the time: to sign quickly. It was as if if he didn't sign quickly, Yang Ping would take away those documents and never sign them again.

As for the technical details, he didn't need to know them at all, but in the past few days he had already imagined a lot of science fiction details: a luxurious and futuristic machine bed, numerous mechanical arms, green liquid, and a security team to prevent him from turning into Superman and going berserk.

"Please cooperate and lie down," the nurse instructed him again.

He was reluctant to lie down, but he didn't dare disobey the nurse, so he had no choice but to lie down obediently. He wondered if they were going to put him on a transport vehicle and push him to that magical laboratory.

Morris had introduced him to Yang Ping's laboratory, saying it was very sci-fi and that many amazing results came from there. He wondered what kind of place it was.

Yang Ping led the doctors in. A dozen doctors in white coats surrounded the bed, and many others stood around the perimeter. In a place like an international medical center, privacy is usually very strictly protected. However, this was an experimental treatment, and it was essentially an experiment. Therefore, when the informed consent was signed, it was explained that many doctors would be observing. Some of them were researchers involved in the experiment, while others were simply observing and witnessing the process.

Adams had never seen such a lineup before. He had been hospitalized in England, but he had never seen such a large and impressive team of doctors. However, Adams did not feel oppressed at this moment. Instead, he felt a sense of security he had never felt before.

Yang Ping asked a few simple questions, confirmed there were no other problems, and then asked the nurse to prepare for K treatment.

Adams was stunned. How did he end up in this hospital room? Wasn't there a super futuristic laboratory? Before he could react, a nurse pushed in a small cart with a small box on it. She took out a biological agent, performed a three-check and seven-verification process to confirm that there were no problems, then attached the biological agent to the IV stand and administered it into his vein through the IV set.

Adams looked up at the ordinary bottle of medicine. It didn't resemble the high-tech product he had heard of at all. It had no science fiction feel to it; it was just a small bottle of ordinary liquid.

He dared not ask, but his mind was filled with countless questions.

The bottle of fluid was actually quite small, only fifty milliliters. Besides the K biological agent, it also contained a special solution to keep it alive. Everyone gathered around just watching him receive the IV drip; there was no other special treatment.

A few minutes later, Yang Ping confirmed that there were no problems. He left a few doctors and nurses behind and led the others back to the research facility.

Modern K treatment no longer requires so many doctors to be present, as that would be a waste of time. This is because modern K treatment is very safe, with risks similar to those of a regular IV infusion. Even if an accident occurs, ordinary doctors and nurses can handle it.

It was just a 50ml bottle of fluid, which was quickly finished. The nurse removed the IV line, sealed the indwelling needle in his arm, and then quietly waited for observation in the ward.

"The treatment is complete! Let us know if you feel any discomfort," the doctor on duty told Adams. Is this what the world-renowned K treatment is like? It was completed so quickly—is this even effective? The treatment I just received was just a regular IV drip; the process didn't seem to live up to its reputation at all.

"That's it?" Adams was completely taken aback; at first, he even thought it was just a prelude to some kind of K treatment.

K's treatment, which tormented him for days, leaving him constantly on edge and only able to fall asleep with the help of sleeping pills, and causing him to frequently need to urinate from the morning onwards, was surprisingly simple—even simpler than the IV drips he received in the UK.

"Do I need to lie down all the time?" Adams asked.

The doctor immediately said, "You can get up and move around freely. If you feel uncomfortable, just tell us. Think of it as an IV drip of saline solution. Don't worry. According to our current data, the side effects of this treatment are very mild, and sometimes there are no side effects at all."

The nurse took his ear temperature again, and it was normal; he did not have a fever.

Now a new torment begins: could this small, unremarkable bottle of liquid really kill the tumor cells in his body? He finds it hard to believe.

While in the UK, he had already undergone various high-end treatments. For example, the cutting-edge particle beam therapy, worth tens of millions of pounds, was so advanced and futuristic that lying on it instilled a sense of awe and reverence for technology.

There were also all sorts of novel chemotherapy drugs, targeted therapies, and immunotherapies—basically, every method available was used, and they were all cutting-edge techniques.

Compared to those high-end instruments and drugs, this small bottle of liquid is really too ordinary. If the doctor and nurse hadn't just told him that it was K biological agent, he would never have thought that his treatment had already begun.

"What are its components? I mean, the liquid in that bottle?" Adams had already read Yang Ping's paper and knew what it was all about, but that was theory, pure text. Now that he had seen the physical object, he needed to communicate face-to-face with the team that had developed it.

Dr. Li, who stayed behind, said, "That's the K biological agent. It's a protein structure modified from adenovirus. It's a protein structure with life characteristics, just like a virus. It's now distributed throughout your body through your blood circulation. It can penetrate the capillary walls, enter the gaps between cells, and then look for tumor cells. It can gather around tumor cells, accurately identify them, invade the tumor cells, and finally hunt them down."

Is it really that magical? It's just a bottle of liquid.

"I don't feel anything right now. It's fighting tumor cells inside my body. Countless tiny battles are going on right now. Shouldn't I be feeling intensely?"

In movies, when people are injected with some kind of sci-fi drug, they usually feel uncomfortable, struggle, and contort. Their muscles and blood vessels seem about to explode. In short, this reaction indicates that there is some kind of huge energy conflicting within their bodies.

But right now he feels nothing. He feels full after drinking a bottle of water, but he feels nothing at all, let alone any sense of conflicting energy.

Was the medication ineffective? Had it already lost its effectiveness in his body? Did others feel the same way? Adams' mind was filled with many questions, and these thoughts made him uneasy.

“Our K biologic has undergone many improvements and is now very mild. During treatment, there will be little to no reaction, and you won’t even feel anything. The first-generation biologic was not so mild. It was like a ferocious beast that was difficult to control. It could cause persistent high fever, coma, or a severe immune response. Some of the side effects were very serious, and the subjects could be in danger of death at any time,” Dr. Li explained to him.

It seems that the first-generation biological agents were more potent. Do these milder biological agents still have any fighting power?

Adams was once again caught in a web of internal struggles. Had he missed out on the powerful first-generation therapy, and was the current mild K therapy merely a compromise made by researchers for safety reasons? It might have indeed improved safety, but at the same time, it no longer possessed the miraculous effects of the past.

"This generation of...K biological agent is milder than the first generation. Will it sacrifice some of its therapeutic effects as a result?" Adams wanted to confirm this question.

For the research team, he was just a sample; for him, it was about achieving the continuation of life.

Dr. Li didn't expect him to be so conflicted: "No, with each iteration we make, we improve the treatment effect and reduce side effects. Our team has devoted a lot of effort to continuously optimizing the plan."

“But there is a very objective fact—efficiency and safety are often contradictory; they cannot be achieved at the same time. If one improves, the other will inevitably decline.” Adams was somewhat skeptical of the young doctor’s explanation.

Because he was a mathematician, he always liked to analyze problems in a deep and precise way, trying to find a pure answer.

Unfortunately, mathematics is purely theoretical and inherently perfect, while medicine is an experimental discipline and inherently imperfect.

"No, that's only true in most cases. Our team has worked hard to bring K biologics into a few areas where its safety and therapeutic effects have been improved simultaneously. We don't need to sacrifice one for the other. They are not contradictory, nor are they two ends of the same coin." Dr. Li was a little reluctant to explain, but since he was a patient and had questions, he had the right to know. He had the right to be informed, and doctors had the obligation to answer his patients' questions.

“There is an impossible triangle in economics, and I believe that this pattern also exists in your experiments. I often call it the seesaw theory. Two closely related parameters are like a seesaw. You can’t have everything. If you press down on one end, the other end will inevitably lift up,” Adams argued.

"Honey, would you like some water?"

Adams' wife felt that her husband was going crazy again. He often did this when he was studying mathematical problems, especially when discussing mathematical problems with friends. But now he wasn't discussing mathematical problems, but talking to the doctor about his condition and treatment.

"No, no, no, I'm not thirsty right now, Doctor. Don't you think so? This seesaw theory exists in many fields, including your experiments. For example, in the research of antibiotics and other drugs, dosage and safety are like a seesaw. To kill bacteria, the higher the dosage, the better. However, if it reaches a certain level, the human body cannot tolerate it, which will harm the body's health or even cause death. Therefore, when the dosage on one side is increased, the safety on the other side of the seesaw decreases. This seesaw theory also applies to your K therapy. Efficiency and safety are the two ends of the seesaw." Adams completely ignored his wife's hints.

Dr. Li is having a headache now; he's a really troublesome patient. He not only keeps getting stuck on this, but he also comes up with all sorts of theories.

How can I persuade him to stop worrying about it?
“Your theory is interesting, and I agree with it, but you’ve overlooked one issue. This isn’t a mathematical problem, it’s a medical one. Our team has already managed to make efficiency and safety two separate seesaws that are no longer related. If you press down on one end of this seesaw, why should the other seesaw tilt up? In our medical research, the seesaws you’re talking about are often not just one, but many.” Dr. Li had no choice but to argue with him.

Two seesaws? Adams pondered.