Chương 252: Brain Surgery

The next day, I carried my mother to Dr. Trish's clinic. Dr. Trish had offered to help me during the operation - which was a relief. Even if she was less experienced with the magical side of healing, I trusted her proficiency with scalpels and bone saws. Dr. Trish was also very familiar with how my ability worked, so we worked well together. For my mother's surgery, I wanted the best doctor I could get access to. When I arrived, I saw Old Mo, Felix, and Anise waiting for me.

Anise gave me a reassuring hug, and Felix gave me a light pat on the shoulder.

"Good luck," he said. I nodded, and grinned nervously. Then, I turned towards Old Mo. Old Mo gave my mother a disgusted look, before he shook his head. I tried not to wince. Old Mo had expressed his disapproval of my mother multiple times. He seemed to feel that she prioritized drugs over me. I couldn't say that he was wrong. My mother had disappeared into her addiction years ago, and almost never came out. Still, seeing him frown at her stung a bit.

Before I could feel too disappointed, Old Mo turned towards me, and gave me a hug. Unlike the look he had given my mother, he gave me a warm smile. I felt a bit better. Even if Old Mo didn't like my mother very much, he had still come to support me when I was trying to heal her. His actions spoke louder than his words. Whether he agreed with me or not, he was still here to offer morale support and hope for my success.

"Thank you for coming," I said, giving him a firmer hug.

"It means a lot to me."

"I know you can do it," he said.

"You're an amazing healer, and you have all kinds of weird, Market abilities. There is no one in the world more qualified to do this than you." Then, he released me.

"I appreciate the faith," I said. Old Mo looked at my mother, before he sighed.

"I just hope that when she wakes up, she extends the same care and affection towards you. Addicts have a hard time controlling themselves, and your mother…" Old Mo trailed off. Finally, he shook his head.

"Well, she has already proven where her priorities are. But for what it's worth, I hope this ends the way you dream of. If it doesn't, I'll be here for you. Until the day my age catches up with me and I return to the ocean." I winced at the thought of Old Mo dying. He was getting older. Before I could sink too deeply into my thoughts, Old Mo chuckled and ruffled my hair.

"Don't worry. I still have quite a few years left in me. You won't be rid of me that easily." Before I could reply, Dr. Trish cleared her throat. I turned towards her, and saw her positioning my mother on one of the patient tables. Dr. Trish was ready to start. <Miria? You're starting now, right? Good… good luck, > said Sallia. I could hear her stifling the mental equivalent of a yawn. <Thanks, everyone, > I said. <You being here means a lot. > Then, I cleared my throat.

"I think I'm ready," I said.

"Excellent," said Dr. Trish. She eyed the others.

"If you guys aren't part of the healing process, I'd like you to step out of the room. I find crowds distracting during delicate operations. This is something I've never tried before, so… I'm nervous," she said. I could feel a few waves of anxiety radiate off of her, and I winced. Doctor Trish usually wasn't this nervous when handling a patient. Then again, this was something a new kind of surgery for her. Brain surgery existed in this world, but it was far more limited in scope.

There were a few rare cases where someone got a piece of shrapnel lodged inside of their skull or something, and survived. In that case, doctors might remove the shrapnel so that the patient could heal. But brain surgery hadn't developed beyond that point yet. Trying to cut open the surface layer of the brain, remove things deeper inside the brain, and then heal everything up was a step further than that. It was natural to feel nervous when trying something this new and untested.

Felix, Old Mo, and Anise glanced at each other, before they nodded.

"That's fine," said Felix.

"Good luck." Then, the three of them shuffled out of the room. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. The two of us got to work. Dr. Trish used her bone saw to make an incision in my mother's skull. Her hands were sure and steady. There wasn't a single excess movement or trace of clumsiness in her actions. Meanwhile, I directed Dr. Trish's cutting. Since I could see using water, I could see inside of my mother's brain with my spatial sight.

This was one of the reasons Dr. Trish was willing to try this operation - my abnormal spatial sight. Of course, she had given me a very strange look when I had discussed this ability with her. I had said it was part of my healing ability, and she had barely accepted that reasoning... but I knew I was stretching things here. Still, I needed her to be aware of what I could do. Otherwise, this surgery might fail.

"Am I cutting in the right direction?" she asked, as she showed me where she intended to cut next.

"Cut about a millimeter to the left," I said.

"Otherwise, you'll just miss the closest piece of mold." Dr. Trish nodded, and repositioned her cut. She asked me for confirmation, and then her scalpel sank into my mother's brain. My mother's soul start quaking. Even the tiny incision that Dr. Trish had made seemed to damage to the connection between my mother's soul and her brain. It was almost like there was a miniature earthquake happening inside of her skull. I started getting very nervous. I had thought the impact would be smaller.

I activated soul clamp and started holding my mother's soul in place. It wasn't a perfect solution, but if my mother's soul tore free of her brain, she would be dead. I needed to keep it from drifting off or jerking out of place. This was much harder than it had been when I was trying to heal the coma patient. In that case, I only moved things around and let the connection heal on its own. This time, the connection was squirming and thrashing as if it were a fish in a net.

Every single movement of Doctor Trish's scalpel gnawed at the connection. Still, I said nothing as Dr. Trish pressed onwards. Finally, Dr. Trish's careful incision reached the first chunk of Fizz mold.

"Stop," I said.

"You're right on top of the first target now." Doctor Trish froze in place, as if she were an ice sculpture. I grabbed a pair of tweezers, and used them to seize the piece of mold. I started extracting it from my mother's brain as Dr. Trish held my mother's head steady. It only took a few seconds to finish the first step. Then, I turned towards my mother, and focused on my soul sight. I grimaced. The connection had destabilized more than I expected.

It didn't look like her soul was about to tear free of her brain, but the connection was weakened.

"Get everything away, from her skull," I said. Dr. Trish pulled the scalpel as far away from mother's head as possible. Then, as I kept soul clamp in place, I started throwing healing magic into my mother's body. The connection between my mother's brain and her soul kept shuddering. For almost a minute I was terrified that I had made a horrible miscalculation. My mother's soul was about to return to the ocean, and it was all my fault. Luckily, after a minute healing, things stopped quaking.

Her soul stopped quivering. Finally, it settled back into her brain. I checked the state of the 'soul glue' in my mother's body, and sighed. The connection between my mother's brain and her soul was strained. Removing another piece of mold was a bad idea until it had some time to repair itself. Still, the thought of waiting longer made me grit my teeth. There were dozens of little pieces of brain mold to get rid of. If we had to wait multiple days after every removal operation, this could take months to finish.

Worse, some of the Fizz crystals were so deep in my mother's brain that she might die if we tried to remove them. Even a small cut to the brain did a lot of damage to the glue holding the soul in place. Then I sighed, and checked my essence reserves. My alteration essence had taken a pretty significant hit during the operation. If it took longer to heal my mother, than it took longer. She wasn't going anywhere, and I wasn't in a hurry. Besides, I wanted enough essence to be ready for an emergency.

Rushing wasn't the right way to handle patients.

"I don't think it's safe to try again today," I said. I held up the piece of mold we had removed. It was about the size of my pinky fingernail, and it looked and smelled foul.

"We should wait a few days for her to heal up and do the next piece."

"Doesn't your healing magic restore injuries almost instantly?" asked Dr. Trish.

"For the most part, that's true... but my gut is telling me we should wait a bit," I said. Dr. Trish thought about it, before she nodded.

"It's your ability, I suppose." Then, she took a closer look at my face.

"Well, look on the bright side. We removed a piece, and nothing went wrong. And now you have a working test to prove that it's possible to remove mold like this. That's more than the medical community has had for centuries. Once she's ready, we'll do it again. It might take a while, but we can heal her." I nodded. I had still successfully done a small bit of brain surgery. Even if the wait time was longer than I had hoped for, we had still succeeded. That was something.

I checked my mother's eyes and reflexes, to see if one piece of mold removed had made a big difference. Her reflexes weren't much better than before… but they were slightly improved. I didn't think my mother seemed particularly more aware of her surroundings than before, but any improvement at all was heartening. Maybe we needed to remove more pieces of Fizz mold before she actually woke up. Still, we had succeeded. We just needed to repeat this process until she was healed.