The Physician of Traditional Medicine Returns from Murim - Chapter 67

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 67

Yun Hanbyeol, whose Junwon Online nickname was Kkyu Kkyu, returned to an empty house.

Even when he heard yesterday that it might be cancer, he mostly thought it couldn’t be true.

Cancer? That’s something that only happens to grandmothers and grandfathers on TV, right?

Though he kept feeling worried just in case, he was more excited about the thought of eating delicious food with the guild leader and touring the city.

“Hah…”

Why does life treat only me like this?

Only laments came out.

It seemed like there were times when he was happy as a child, but after coming to this place, his life had been nothing but misery.

Yes, he definitely used to love visiting Grandmother’s house during his childhood.

But how could visiting the countryside once a year compare to being abandoned by his parents and forced to live here reluctantly?

This was the result of clinging to his parents and begging them not to divorce.

Yun Hanbyeol couldn’t bring himself to like this neighborhood, and it was obvious even to the middle schoolers born and raised in the countryside that the city kid looked down on rural life.

He couldn’t get along with his peers at school either.

He hated that Grandmother pitied him. But if he didn’t rely on even that pity, he had nowhere else to go. It was miserable.

So Yun Hanbyeol avoided even Grandmother, and in this rural corner, there was nothing to do but play games.

‘Still, these past few days were really good.’

In the game, there were many people who played with him.

Though it was a relationship built on the lie that he was a college student, there were so many people who waited for him, who praised him for doing well. He too had been waiting for updates, waiting for the guild leader to log in, waiting for the days they’d run raids together.

He had been looking forward to tomorrow, just a little.

‘As soon as I become happy, do you have to take everything away like this?’

He could only think that the world was tormenting him.

Why, why only me?

The idiots at school live well without a care in the world.

Mom and Dad abandoned me but are probably making lots of money, having new children with their new partners, and living happily, right?

Bzzzz-.

While he was hugging his pillow and crying, his phone vibrated.

‘Is it the guild leader? Or Young Master Chungpung? Did the guild leader tell them…’

Yun Hanbyeol checked the caller.

[Dad]

The guild leader really did contact him. At least he’s calling.

Should I answer? Or not? While Yun Hanbyeol hesitated, the call ended.

‘As expected.’

He sighed and put down his phone.

But soon it vibrated again.

“…Hello.”

“Is this Hanbul?”

“Yes.”

“I heard what happened, Hanbul. How… how hard this must be for you. It should be me or someone else, how could this happen to a young kid like you…”

“…”

“You’re at home, right? Dad is coming right now. If you have surgery, everything will be fine, so don’t worry about anything and just wait.”

He’s coming?

“What about work?”

The words slipped out of Yun Hanbyeol’s mouth without him realizing it.

“What does work matter? When you’re sick! I took the afternoon off and I’m heading up there now. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. For not being able to take care of you until it came to this…”

“You’re sorry? To me?”

“Of course I’m sorry. I feel like I could die from being sorry. My beloved Hanbul, if Dad had taken proper care of you. Ah…”

“You say you love me.”

Dad said it countless times. That he was sorry, that he loved him.

“…”

I thought he didn’t love me at all.

I thought work was much more important to him.

But still, to drop everything and come running, it made him feel a little good.

“I miss you, Dad.”

Yun Hanbyeol said quietly.

He hugged his stomach tightly.

To think that cancer cells are really growing inside here…

He was scared. Incredibly scared.

It was too terrible a fear for someone his young age to experience.

But knowing that Dad was coming for him, it felt like he might be able to overcome it.

A moment later, Dad hung up saying he had to drive.

As soon as he did, a new call came in.

[Young Master Chungpung]

Somehow it made him laugh. A nickname that momentarily made reality feel unreal.

Here too, and in the game world too, there were people looking for him.

Yun Hanbyeol answered the phone while turning on his computer.

* * *

After talking with Yun Jeonghun, Yun Hanbyeol’s father, it turned out there had been various misunderstandings between father and son.

Yun Jeonghun thought his son hated him so much that he didn’t even want to see his face, while Yun Hanbyeol believed his father didn’t love him at all and had abandoned him in the countryside.

According to what I heard from Yun Jeonghun, Yun Hanbyeol had been extremely distressed by his parents’ divorce.

Since their only son had begged and pleaded with them not to divorce, Yun Jeonghun tried to find possible points of compromise, but… the couple ultimately faced catastrophe.

“Do you want to live with Dad or with Mom?”

Yun Hanbyeol’s answer to that terrible question, heard at the age of a first-year middle school student, was:

“I hate both of you. Just die!”

It was quite harsh.

He didn’t hesitate to say hurtful things like “I hope you get in an accident” or “I hope you get seriously ill,” so Yun Jeonghun said he was quite hurt in his own way.

Thus, the solution he barely came up with was to entrust him to his grandmother.

There were no suitable relatives on the maternal side, and since Yun Hanbyeol was quite attached to his grandmother, he made this difficult request.

The grandmother said wouldn’t the child be lonely in this countryside, but if it was what Hanbyeol wanted, she would gladly accept him.

So he worked in Busan while sending child support.

And of course, initially he planned to visit often to see his son’s face… but he just couldn’t muster the courage.

“Even so, how could you not contact him for over a year?!”

Yun Jeonghun couldn’t say a word. He said it was all his fault, and he had only thought his son was living well with his grandmother.

“Not visiting was indeed wrong, but don’t blame yourself for the illness too. You need to stay strong as his father.”

“…Yes.”

“He’ll be scared before the surgery, and he’ll be anxious for a while after. Wondering if there will be any side effects, if they’ll suggest chemotherapy… If he gets a total resection, dumping syndrome might occur too.”

“Yes. I’ll pull myself together properly. Thank you.”

Fortunately, Yun Jeonghun went to see Yun Hanbyeol that very day, and the two seemed to have cleared up their misunderstanding.

Yun Hanbyeol’s voice when he logged in the next day was quite bright.

“I’ve decided to move to Busan! I’m going to live with Dad from now on!”

“Really? That’s wonderful!”

“Hehehe. Now if I have any pain, I’ll come see you right away, Guild Master!”

“That’s right. Come anytime.”

Since they planned to move and complete school transfer procedures, considering future management, they made a surgery reservation at a hospital in Busan.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t at a stage where just removing the mucosa would suffice.

If the cancer is 2cm or smaller and only in the mucosal layer, it can be finished with a simple procedure to remove it, but when it has spread widely within the stomach along the submucosal layer and invaded toward the serosal layer, there’s no choice but to resect the stomach.

“Aaaahhhhh!”

Until the day of surgery, Yun Hanbyeol intermittently fell into panic.

Even while playing games all day to forget his fear, he would scream and tear at his hair.

I couldn’t watch over him 24 hours a day, but all the other Party members prayed for Yun Hanbyeol’s surgery to go well.

Fortunately, the surgery ended cleanly.

He woke up safely, and the pain and physical decline weren’t as severe as he had worried about.

“Hehe, it was nothing much. Sorry for making everyone worry. I think it was treated well because Guild Master helped me discover it early!”

Yun Hanbyeol was discharged in less than a week and quickly returned to his daily life.

He seemed even more cheerful than before the surgery.

His game login time decreased, but it seemed to be because he made friends at his new school, so I wasn’t worried.

* * *

But a month after the surgery ended, father and son Yun Jeonghun and Yun Hanbyeol came to visit the Traditional Korean Medicine Clinic.

“Hello, Clinic Director. It’s nice to meet you for the first time like this. Thank you so much for all the advice you gave me over the phone last time.”

“Not at all. I’m really glad you two reconciled. Have you been well too, Kkyu Kkyu?”

“…Don’t call me that!”

Yun Hanbyeol turned his head while covering his reddened face.

“Haha, I’m just teasing. You should have contacted me in advance. We could have had lunch together. Did you come to say hello? Or is there some problem?”

I asked them both with a smile.

The surgery went well, and I understand he didn’t need chemotherapy. Then the possible problems narrow down to a few things.

“…It’s not serious.”

“How can you say it’s not serious! Didn’t you ignore your heartburn before, saying it was nothing like that!”

Yun Jeonghun said while embracing his son.

“Dumping syndrome has developed. Just as you were concerned about before, Clinic Director.”

“Ah… So you came because of that.”

“Yes. I vaguely remembered you mentioning it. I came to express our gratitude and see if there might be some solution.”

Dumping Syndrome.

It was one of the most representative complications that could appear after stomach resection.

If you translate the word “dumping” literally, it would be something like “pouring out,” right?

Normally, food that passes through the esophagus gradually moves from the stomach to the small intestine where digestion occurs.

But when part or all of the stomach is removed, this regulatory function disappears, causing large amounts of food to pour from the esophagus into the small intestine, increasing osmotic pressure and potentially causing various symptoms.

Symptoms that appear 10-30 minutes after food first pours out are called early dumping syndrome.

Symptoms that occur when blood sugar that rose momentarily then drops rapidly to hypoglycemia due to massive insulin secretion are called late dumping syndrome. Late dumping appears 2-4 hours after eating.

“What are the main symptoms? Do you feel like vomiting or does your stomach hurt? Do you also feel dizzy and have trouble seeing?”

“Pain is occasional? It’s not severely burning like before surgery, just a bit stuffy. The most uncomfortable thing is feeling like something’s going to come up, and sometimes I feel dizzy and break out in cold sweats, but I get better quickly when I rest.”

Yun Hanbyeol shrugged as if it was nothing much.

Of course, Yun Jeonghun’s thoughts were completely different.

“No. Hanbul is just taking it too lightly. You know, don’t you, Clinic Director? How insensitive this kid is… He collapsed during PE class and caused a huge commotion.”

“That was just the kids overreacting.”

Of course, my thoughts leaned more toward Yun Jeonghun’s side.

“If you collapse from hypoglycemic shock, you can’t just leave it untreated. Dumping syndrome itself improves with dietary therapy after some time passes, but before that happens, if you collapse like this time and hit your head, it would be a disaster.”

“Ah, it’s because I let my guard down. Usually it only happens briefly after eating, but suddenly I got dizzy during 6th period.”

“Since you have both early and late dumping together, you need to be even more careful! You need to treat both the dizziness and the abdominal bloating.”

If treatment could make it better, why would anyone endure the discomfort?

When I was a student, I saw quite many cases at the University-affiliated Traditional Korean Medicine Hospital. Both in South Korea and in China.

Herbal medicine and acupuncture treatment have significant effects on symptoms like abdominal bloating as well as dizziness, sweating, and palpitations, and the same was true for dumping syndrome patients.

“You came at the right time. From now on, I’ll help you, so don’t worry.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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