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 to see a doctor.
Some of them are in wheelchairs, some are on crutches, which is normal in orthopedic surgery, and there is an uncle who has been waiting for a long time and sleeps on a chair and snores.
Zhou Haorui sat in a position in one of the rows, pressed his mobile phone, looked up from time to time to look at the electronic queuing screen on the wall, it was his turn soon. He touched the cervical spine, and there was a slight tingling pain, which made his heart throb.
"It won't be so unlucky..."
Zhou Haorui is 20 years old this year. He is not a local. He came to Dahua from another place to study. He majored in chemistry at Dahua University of Technology.
Dahua Institute of Technology is an ordinary second school, just as he is an ordinary boy.
He once wanted to enter Tianji University, but he didn't have that kind of talent.
Zhou Haorui touched his neck, and the medical record bag next to him contained the results of the X-ray film he had just taken, and a rare disease he had found was displayed on his mobile phone:
progressive muscular ossification
fibrodyspsia ossificans progressiva, referred to as for.
Today is March 30, about a week ago, when Zhou Haorui woke up, he felt a particularly sore neck. At that time, he thought it was a stiff neck, and he would be fine after a rest. Unexpectedly, after two days, not only did it not improve, but the neck became more and more stiff, and sometimes it would make a clicking sound when I moved, which was very uncomfortable.
Zhou Haorui had no choice but to pay attention to it. He went to the pharmacy and bought a bottle of Dieda ointment to apply it on. However, after a few days of applying it, the symptoms continued to worsen.
Even sometimes he would suddenly faint for no reason, couldn't sleep well, lost energy in class, and his life was completely affected.
Therefore, Zhou Haorui had no choice but to come to the hospital to see the orthopedics department, and asked the attending physician Xiao Gang to see him, and asked him to take an X-ray for examination first.
Like many of his peers today, Zhou Haorui is keen on supernatural power, Tianji Bureau, Gu Jun and other things that are covered with mysterious fog. But it is also because of this that he is so uneasy now, he always has a lot of thoughts, and he always feels that something is wrong...
Could it be that I have some strange disease? Or even the initial patient of some kind of epidemic
This kind of thinking made him more and more afraid. Before coming to the hospital, he had already searched the Internet for his symptoms.
Although it is said that the cancer started when he checked the disease online, but the more he checked, the more he felt a strange and inexplicable feeling, which was a strange feeling from the cervical spine...
The more I look at this rare disease called progressive muscular ossification, the more I feel strange.
It was as if he saw his own 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 with a cane.
Zhou Haorui hurriedly got up, took the medical records bag, and strode into the consultation room. The consultation room is less than ten square meters. Dr. Xiao is sitting behind a desk, with a nurse helping him, and an intern operating a computer at another desk and taking charge of the input work.
"Dr. Xiao, I've finished taking the X-ray." Zhou Haorui walked up, handed all the medical records to Dr. Xiao, and sat down on the chair.
Dr. Xiao Gang is a young and strong man in his thirties, wearing a pair of rimless glasses. He is gentle and gentle. After reading the X-rays and the results of the report, he quickly said: "Minor bone hyperplasia." He looked Looking at the patient, "At ordinary times, pay more attention to protecting the cervical spine. Watching mobile phones, computers and reading books should be appropriate. You are still young, and the problem is not serious, so don't worry too much. I will prescribe some anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving drugs for you, and then go to the rehabilitation department to cooperate. Get physical therapy."
Bone hyperplasia? Zhou Haorui breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the words, but immediately, that strange feeling came to his heart again...
The tingling sensation in the cervical spine seemed to be telling him that it wasn't that simple, it wasn't bone hyperplasia...
"Dr. Xiao, I have some doubts." Zhou Haorui asked with a frown. He really checked a lot of information, "Isn't hyperosteogeny common to the elderly? I have hyperosteogeny since I was 20 years old. Is it common?"
"There were not many in the past, but now there are more and more." Dr. Xiao has a very good attitude. Only through sufficient communication between doctors and patients can he treat the disease well. He explained patiently: "Because the life and work of modern people will place a heavy burden on the joints and cervical spine. , so the disease of bone hyperplasia is getting younger. This requires your personal long-term care and protection."
Really, Zhou Haorui thinks about it. He lowers his head and plays with his mobile phone a lot, but he also plays a lot of basketball. The key is that strange feeling.
This made him couldn't help asking: "Doctor Xiao, look at my condition, is it possible that it is progressive muscular ossification?"
"What?" Dr. Xiao was taken aback, and the nurse next to him and the intern opposite seemed to be taken aback, too. Dr. Xiao asked suspiciously, "Progressive muscular ossification?"
Dr. Xiao really thought about it, and then remembered that there seems to be such a rare disease, "Oh, progressive muscular ossification...how should I put it..."
Zhou Haorui listened nervously, only to see Dr. Xiao pointing to the X-ray film and said: "Look, hyperosteogeny will appear as a protrusion with a wide bottom 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, and although he nodded, he really couldn't understand it.
"In addition, what you said is progressive muscular ossification..." Dr. Xiao put down the X-ray, and had to use the computer on the table to search for information 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 gene mutations..."
"I think you know a lot about this disease." Dr. Xiao remained patient, "You know that the incidence of this rare disease is estimated to be one in two million. 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 the age of 10."
Dr. Xiao looked at several pathological pictures on the computer screen, and said: "This disease does not start from similar bone hyperplasia. If it occurs suddenly, it will appear as a tumor-like mass on imaging. Because it is a genetic mutation that causes the body's muscles to Fibrous tissues, including tendons and ligaments, ossify spontaneously or in the event of trauma to form secondary bones, and these heterotopic secondary bones are permanently fused with the original normal main bones, resulting in limited joint mobility , In the end, the whole body was covered with bones and became immobile like a stone. I see that there are no tumor-like lumps 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 talk to the full, but wanted to get a guarantee.
"Your current symptoms really don't look like it." Dr. Xiao said solemnly, "It's unlikely in terms of probability. But whether it will happen in the future, I can't say."
Zhou Haorui could not rest assured scratching his head, and touched his neck again, pain, stiffness, and that strange feeling...
Like Dr. Shaw said, there seems to be some bone growing...
Fibrosis, ossification, petrification…