Plague Doctor

In the outpatient complex of Jikang Hospital in Dahua City, in the waiting room of the Orthopedic Surgery Department on the fifth floor, rows of waiting chairs are filled with patients and their families waiting for treatment.

Some of them were in wheelchairs, others were using crutches, which is normal in orthopedic surgeries, and there was also an old man who had been waiting for a long time and was sleeping in a chair and snoring.

Zhou Haorui sat in a seat in one of the rows, pressing the phone in his hand. From time to time he looked up at the electronic queuing screen on the wall. It was almost his turn. He touched his cervical spine and felt a slight sting, which made his heart ache.

"It won't be so unlucky..."

Zhou Haorui is 20 years old. He is not a local. He came to Dahua from other places to study chemistry at Dahua University of Technology.

Dahua Polytechnic is an ordinary second-year university, just like he is an ordinary boy.

I once wanted to enter Tianji University, but I didn't have the qualifications and talent.

Zhou Haorui touched his neck. The medical record bag next to him contained the results of the X-ray film he had just taken, and his mobile phone displayed a rare disease he had found:

progressive musculoskeletal disease

fibrodysplasiassificansprogressiva, referred to as for.

Today is March 30. About a week ago, when Zhou Haorui woke up, he felt his neck was particularly sore. At the time, he thought it was a stiff neck and that he would be fine after taking a rest. Unexpectedly, after two days, not only did it not get better, but my neck became more and more stiff. Sometimes it would make a clicking sound when I moved, which was very uncomfortable.

Only then did Zhou Haorui have to pay attention. He went to the drugstore and bought a bottle of bruise ointment to apply. However, after applying it for a few days, the symptoms continued to worsen.

Sometimes he would suddenly feel faint for no reason, couldn't sleep well, and had no energy in class, and his life was completely affected.

Therefore, Zhou Haorui could only come to the hospital to see the orthopedics department and see the attending physician Xiao Gang, who asked him to take an X-ray for examination first.

Like many of his peers today, Zhou Haorui is keen on supernatural powers, the Secret Bureau, Gu Jun and other things that are shrouded in mystery. But it is precisely because of this that he is so uneasy now. He always has many thoughts and always feels something is wrong...

Could he be suffering from some strange disease? Or even the starting patient of some kind of epidemic?

This thought made him more and more frightened. Before coming to the hospital, he had already searched the Internet with his symptoms.

Although it was said that cancer started when he searched online, the more he checked, the more he felt a weird and inexplicable feeling, which was a strange sensation coming from the cervical spine...

The more I look at this rare disease called Muscular Ossification Progressive, the stronger the feeling becomes.

It was as if I saw my death date on the calendar.

"Zhou Haorui." At this time, the electronic calling system called his name.

At the door of Dr. Xiao Gang's consulting room, a patient walked out slowly on crutches.

Zhou Haorui quickly stood up, picked up the medical record bag, and strode into the consulting room. The clinic is less than ten square meters. Dr. Xiao sits behind the desk, with a nurse helping him. There is also an intern operating the computer at another desk and responsible for inputting the information.

"Dr. Xiao, I've finished taking the X-ray." Zhou Haorui walked up, handed all the medical records to Dr. Xiao, and sat down in the chair.

Dr. Xiao Gang is a young man in his thirties. He wears a pair of rimless glasses and is polite. He took the X-ray film and the report results and looked at them. He quickly said: "Mild bone hyperplasia." He looked at it In order to see the patient, "You should pay more attention to protecting the cervical spine, and watch mobile phones, computers and books appropriately. You are still young and the problem is not serious. Don't worry too much. I will prescribe you some anti-inflammatory and analgesic medicine, and then go to the rehabilitation department to cooperate. Get some physical therapy.”

Bone hyperplasia? Zhou Haorui breathed a sigh of relief when he heard this, but immediately, the strange feeling came to his heart again...

The tingling sensation in his cervical spine seemed to tell him that it was not that simple, it was not bone hyperplasia...

"Dr. Xiao, I have some questions." Zhou Haorui frowned and asked. He had really checked a lot of information. "Isn't bone hyperplasia only common in the elderly? I have bone hyperplasia when I was 20 years old. Is this common?"

"There weren't many before, but now there are more and more." Dr. Xiao has a good attitude. Only through sufficient doctor-patient communication can we take good care of the disease. He patiently explained: "Because modern people's life and work will put a lot of burden on joints and cervical vertebrae." , so bone hyperplasia is becoming a disease among younger people. This requires long-term personal care and protection."

Really? Thinking about it, Zhou Haorui thinks that he does spend a lot of time playing with his phone with his head down, but he also plays a lot of games. The key is still that weird feeling.

This made him still couldn't help but ask: "Dr. Xiao, look at my situation, is it possible that I have progressive musculoskeletal ossification?"

"What?" Dr. Xiao was startled. The nurse next to him and the intern opposite seemed to be startled as well. Dr. Xiao asked suspiciously: "Muscle ossification progressive?"

Dr. Xiao really had to think about it before he remembered that there seemed to be such a rare disease, "Oh, progressive muscular ossification...how do you say..."

Zhou Haorui listened nervously and saw Dr. Xiao pointing the X-ray to him and saying: "Look, bone hyperplasia will appear like a protrusion with a wide base and a thin tip on the X-ray image. This position of your cervical spine is Very typical bone hyperplasia.”

"Yeah." Zhou Haorui looked at the bones on the X-ray. Although he nodded along, he really couldn't understand it.

"In addition, what you said is progressive musculoskeletal disease..." Dr. Xiao put down the X-ray film and still had to search for information on the computer on his desk before asking: "Do you have a family history of this disease?"

"No." Zhou Haorui shook his head and said, "I know this is a genetic disease, but

I read that most cases are caused by new genetic mutations..."

"I see that you know a lot about this disease." Dr. Xiao remained patient. "You know that the incidence rate of this rare disease is estimated to be one in two million. From the time the disease was confirmed in the last century to the current global There are about 800 confirmed cases, and one or two cases have been confirmed in China. This disease is a congenital disease, and patients usually develop the disease before they are 10 years old."

Dr. Xiao looked at several pathological pictures on the computer screen and said: "This disease does not start with something like bone hyperplasia. If it attacks suddenly, it will appear as a tumor-like mass on imaging. Because it is a genetic mutation that causes the muscles of the body to Fibrous tissues including tendons, tendons, and ligaments ossify spontaneously or in the event of trauma, forming secondary bones. These ectopic secondary bones are permanently fused with the original normal main bones, resulting in limited joint movement. , and eventually the whole body was covered with bones and became as immobile as a stone. I see that there are no tumor-like masses or fibrosis in the tissues around your cervical spine, so there is no need to worry too much about this possibility."

"Then...Dr. Xiao, absolutely not?" Zhou Haorui asked, knowing that the doctor would not tell the truth, but wanted to get a guarantee.

"Your current symptoms are really unlikeable." Dr. Xiao said more solemnly, "It's unlikely in terms of probability. But whether it will happen in the future, I can't say."

Zhou Haorui couldn't help but scratch his head and touch his neck. He felt pain, stiffness, and that strange feeling...

Like Dr. Xiao said, there seems to be bone growing...

Fibrosis, ossification, petrification...

Love the Plague Doctor.