Chapter 2158: Chapter 1421: Rebuilding Is Harder Than Repairing (Part 3)
"Let’s hear the bad news first," Chen Jianguo said, "Save the good news for later, to balance it out."
"The bad news is that your injury has been confirmed as a complete injury on electrophysiology. The nerve conduction below the level of injury is completely interrupted, with no residual ascending or descending signal pathways. This is not unexpected, but after confirmation, it means that our intervention strategy needs to shift from ’repair’ to ’rebuild’—we need to lay a new nerve pathway in your spinal cord from scratch, rather than trying to clear the old one. It’s like not repairing an old road buried by a landslide, but rather, carving out a new tunnel alongside. The difficulty is greater, the cycle is longer, and the uncertainty is higher."
Chen Jianguo nodded, his expression unchanged. "Understood, what else?"
"The good news is that your distal muscles have not suffered severe disuse atrophy. The shape and volume of your muscle fibers are fairly well maintained, thanks to your long-term active and passive training. Your cardiopulmonary function is even beyond expectations, meaning you will tolerate the surgery and subsequent rehabilitation very well. Many people who have been in a wheelchair for eleven years have their bodies completely break down—osteoporosis, cardiopulmonary function decline, pressure sores, urinary tract infections, a host of problems. You don’t have these. From a purely physiological standpoint, you are ten years younger than we anticipated."
Sister Li’s ears turned red again, and she lowered her head, unconsciously rubbing the edge of her thermos cup with her fingers.
"There is one more piece of good news," Manstein continued, his speech slowing, "Your psychological state is very good. This is not just a courtesy, it’s my genuine judgment and an extremely important criterion in the enrollment evaluation. I observed you all day today; you didn’t complain, didn’t show anxiety, nor did you display that morbid excitement. You just calmly accepted all the examinations, listened to me talk about the bad news, and at every decision point, you responded clearly and rationally. This kind of psychological quality is one of the most important conditions for participating in such high-risk frontier experiments. Technology can be improved, plans can be optimized, but a participant who can maintain psychological equilibrium in long-term adversity is irreplaceable."
Chen Jianguo was silent for a moment.
"Professor Mainshtan," he slowly began, "I was a police officer for nine years. During training, the instructor said something that I’ve always remembered—’The more dangerous the situation, the calmer you must be. Panic doesn’t reduce danger, it only clouds your judgment.’ The day I got injured, I fell from a construction site of an overpass. In those few seconds in the air, I wasn’t thinking ’I’m going to die,’ I was thinking ’how can I land to minimize the injury.’ Later, when I really was paralyzed, lying in the ICU, I told myself, panic is useless, crying is useless, there is only one useful thing: survive and wait for the opportunity."
He raised his head and looked at Manstein: "And that wait has been eleven years."
Manstein looked at him without speaking for a long time.
"Mr. Chen," he finally said, with a restrained emotion in his voice, "I can give you a preliminary assessment. From a medical standpoint, you fully meet the enrollment criteria for our human trials; physical condition, psychological state, family support system, all of them meet the standards. However, this is not something I can decide alone. We need to submit all the raw data, imaging materials, electrophysiological records to the Ethics Committee for independent review, and we also need to conduct multidisciplinary discussions with the hospital’s neurosurgery, rehabilitation, and anesthesia expert teams to evaluate the surgical risk and postoperative management plan. This process, following the usual procedures, will take about two to four weeks."
"I’ve waited eleven years," Chen Jianguo said, with even a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth, "What’s another two weeks."
Manstein stood up, walked around the desk, and stood in front of Chen Jianguo, extending his right hand.
"Mr. Chen, regardless of the Ethics Committee’s final decision, meeting you today is my honor."
Chen Jianguo shook his hand.
"Professor Mainshtan, meeting you," Chen Jianguo said earnestly, "is my honor."
PS: I’m really sorry, many of the Chapter numbers in the front got mixed up, probably because a lot of Chapters were deleted midway through the draft. I’m copying them according to the draft. I’ll correct it now.
