Chapter 701: Message
After leaving the hospital office, Song Yuanchao and Lu Baogang felt extremely heavy-hearted, with the words the doctor had just said echoing in their ears.
Thinking back to what he had seen before, Song Yuanchao felt very uncomfortable.
When they entered the ward before, Gu Changjun was sleeping on the partition. They felt a little strange at the time, but now they understand that Gu Changjun didn't want to sleep lying down, but because of his illness, he couldn't sleep lying down at all. He couldn't breathe when he lay down, and he would cough violently. He could only relieve it by lying down.
Moreover, it is not possible to sleep well like this. It is a luxury for Gu Changjun to sleep for two or three hours intermittently in a day. Especially as his condition gradually worsens, the situation becomes more and more serious.
It has been almost a month since his illness broke out. Due to the torture of the disease, Gu Changjun has been losing weight at a rate visible to the naked eye. Coupled with the side effects of the treatment drugs, even this man with a strong temperament can hardly bear it.
Before Song Yuanchao came here, he had thought that if the medical conditions here were not good enough, he planned to use his connections to send Gu Changjun to Yanjing or Shanghai for treatment. After all, these two cities have the best hospitals and doctors in the country, which is much better than the mountain city in this respect.
But now the facts tell Song Yuanchao that even if he sends Gu Changjun to the best hospital in the world, invites the best doctors and uses the best medicine, it will be of no avail, because the attending physician told them that Gu Changjun's disease has reached the late stage and from a medical point of view, there is no cure. The best they can do is to relieve his pain as much as possible and let him survive a few more days to get through this last period of time.
When he thought of this, Song Yuanchao felt as if his heart was being stabbed by needles. After returning to this era, it was the first time he experienced the separation of life and death between people.
Although Song Yuanchao had experienced this kind of thing countless times in his previous life, this time was different. Perhaps it was because of his different state of mind.
Lu Baogang subconsciously took out a cigarette from his pocket and was about to light it when he remembered that this was a hospital.
Song Yuanchao reached out and patted his shoulder. The two of them went downstairs, left the hospital building, and came to the side, each lighting a cigarette and smoking it.
"How could this happen?" Lu Baogang asked. He was not asking Song Yuanchao but himself, and also asking about the fate.
Lu Baogang's eyes were moistened for a moment. He raised his hand and wiped them with his sleeve. He asked Song Yuanchao in a choked voice, "Mr. Song, is there any way to cure Secretary Gu's disease?"
Song Yuanchao did not speak, and remained silent, which shattered Lu Baogang's last remaining hope. He, a grown man, an old man in his fifties, suddenly squatted down, holding his head with his hands and crying silently.
Song Yuanchao raised his hand, as if he wanted to comfort him, but finally put his hand down because he was feeling bad at the moment.
Lu Baogang cried for a while, raised his hand to wipe the tears from his face, stood up and said to Song Yuanchao: "I'm sorry to make you laugh, Secretary Gu and I have been friends for many years, I didn't expect him to encounter this, I really feel..."
"I understand." Song Yuanchao nodded and sighed, "Go wash your face. It would be bad if Secretary Gu saw us when we go upstairs later. "
"Please wait for a moment." Lu Bao had just cried and now he felt much calmer. He said this to Song Yuanchao and walked . After a while, Lu Bao, who had washed his face and looked fine, walked back into the inpatient building with Song Yuanchao.
Once again returning to Gu Changjun's ward, the nurse had left , but there was still an IV bottle hanging by the bed, and an unknown yellow liquid in it slowly flowed into Gu Changjun's body through the tube.
Perhaps because he had just seen Song Yuanchao and the others coming, Gu Changjun asked the nurse to help him wash his face and looked a little more energetic.
Seeing Song Yuanchao and the others coming in, Gu Changjun greeted them as usual, and even smiled and blamed them for being so busy and coming all the way to the mountain city to see him. It would be fine if they just came to see him, but they also brought so many gifts. It would be a waste to buy these things. How could he finish them all by himself?
Gu Changjun couldn't help coughing a few times while he was talking, and his voice was much softer than usual. Seeing him pretending to be normal, Song Yuanchao felt uncomfortable, but he was afraid that Gu Changjun would notice that he was abnormal, so he could only force a smile and chat with him.
The three of them tacitly did not talk about the illness. Gu Changjun asked them some work questions, and Song Yuanchao and Lu Baogang answered them one by one. They also asked a few questions about Gu Changjun's family situation.
Gu Changjun smiled and told him that his family was doing well. After moving from Jinling to Shancheng, he lived with his eldest son's family. Both children were filial, and the second son would come to see him every week no matter how busy he was at work. His grandchildren were also sensible, and the children were gradually growing up. He had not enjoyed the joy of family for so many years, but now he was finally satisfied ...
The three of them chatted like this. After about half an hour, the nurse came back, changed the IV bottle for Gu Changjun, and said that the patient needed to rest.
After the nurse left, Song Yuanchao and Lu Baogang looked at each other, stood up and said goodbye, asking Gu Changjun to have a good rest and they would come to see him again tomorrow.
After leaving the hospital, Song Yuanchao was still in a heavy mood, and neither of them spoke in the car.
Song Yuanchao had no intention of inspecting the branch company, so he went straight to the hotel that had been arranged for him.
After arriving at the hotel, Song Yuanchao went into the room and called Shanghai directly. He found Luo Yang and Zhang Jianguo to ask about the contact channels of experts in this field in Shanghai and Yanjing, and gave a general account of Gu Changjun's condition.
After a while, Luo Yang and Zhang Jianguo called Song Yuanchao back and told them how they had contacted the experts through their connections. With the contact number, Song Yuanchao called without hesitation. It was working hours, but with the communication between Luo Yang and Zhang Jianguo, the two experts from Yanjing and Shanghai were waiting for this call.
I communicated the situation with the expert on the phone and told him the information I had heard from my attending physician, Gu Changjun.
After Song Yuanchao finished speaking, the two experts gave him almost the same answer, telling him that according to the condition described by the attending physician, Gu Changjun should not have much time left, at most two or three months, and if it was shorter, he might not even survive half of that.
Of course, this is just their preliminary judgment. If they want to make an accurate judgment, they have to watch Gu Changjun's film and communicate directly with the attending physician before they can make a conclusion. However, one thing is certain, if the diagnosis here in Shancheng is correct, Gu Changjun is indeed in the late stage of lung cancer, then this disease is terminal, and patients with late stage lung cancer do not have much time left, and the patient is in great pain.
On the phone, Song Yuanchao thanked the expert for his patient explanation and rejected the expert's suggestion to transfer Gu Changjun to Yanjing or Shanghai if possible, because even if he was transferred, they could not guarantee the treatment of the disease. Moreover, judging from the patient's current condition, there was no need to transfer him to another hospital, and it would only aggravate the condition.
After hanging up the phone, Song Yuanchao felt suffocated. He walked back and forth in the room for several times, and finally sat down in a chair by the window, lit a cigarette and sighed.
All the details of how he met Gu Changjun and became friends regardless of age difference emerged in Song Yuanchao's mind one by one. Song Yuanchao felt a pang of pain in his heart and couldn't control his tears.
Although he had experienced many separations and deaths, Gu Changjun was the first acquaintance who was about to leave when he returned to this era. Moreover, Gu Changjun had given him a lot of help both in work and in life. He was an elder whom Song Yuanchao respected very much and a role model worthy of learning from.
In the evening, Song Yuanchao met Gu Changjun's two sons.
Gu Changjun’s eldest son is 36 years old this year and his second son is 34 years old this year.
The two men looked about 70% similar to Gu Changjun. The eldest worked in a machinery factory in Shancheng as a technician, while the second worked in a local government agency as a cadre in an ordinary department.
The two expressed their sincere gratitude to Song Yuanchao and Lu Baogang for coming to Shancheng to visit their father. It was the first time for Song Yuanchao to meet them, and Lu Baogang, as an old friend of Gu Changjun, had known them for a long time, and this time he came because the boss had called Lu Baogang privately before.
The two men came to the hotel and met with Song Yuanchao and his family, expressing their gratitude to them as family members. It was also a kind of hospitality and courtesy as their father's children to their father's old friends and colleagues.
Everyone sat in the hotel room, drank a few cups of tea, and talked about Gu Changjun's condition. When it came to this, everyone felt very uncomfortable, but they were powerless to do anything. It was a pity.
When it was almost time for dinner, the two of them rejected Song Yuanchao's suggestion to go out for dinner, saying that one had to go to the hospital to accompany a patient and the other had to go back to take care of the child, so they had no time and no need to eat.
Seeing this, Song Yuanchao no longer forced them, and he and Lu Baogang sent the two downstairs. When they were saying goodbye, the eldest brother had just walked a few steps when he suddenly seemed to remember something and turned around and walked towards Song Yuanchao.
"Comrade Song..., if it's convenient for you tomorrow, my father wants you to go to the hospital alone. He has something to tell you."
Song Yuanchao was slightly stunned, then nodded and said, "No problem, I'll be there tomorrow morning."
"That's it. Thank you again for taking the time to visit my father. Goodbye!"
The boss shook hands with Song Yuanchao and said goodbye. Song Yuanchao watched them ride away on their bicycles until they disappeared.
The next day, Song Yuanchao went to the hospital alone. It was not that Lu Baogang did not want to go, but Song Yuanchao told Lu Baogang about this matter after seeing off the eldest brother of the Gu family and others last night. Lu Baogang and Gu Changjun have been old friends for many years and knew him very well. He understood as soon as he heard it that Gu Changjun probably had something to talk to Song Yuanchao alone. In that case, it would not be appropriate for him to go with them.
