"It's severe bilateral tuberculous exudative pleurisy, with a serious pleural effusion."
Xu Yuan'cai answered anxiously, pulling a stack of test reports from the bedside table and handing them to Li Xu. "The respiratory specialist at the city hospital looked at the scans. He said that for my mother's lungs, on both sides, everything below the first to third ribs is completely white. It's all submerged in fluid."
"The hospital insisted she needed an immediate puncture to drain the fluid, or she would suffocate. But my mother absolutely refused. She's afraid of pain and afraid of the cost. She cried and made a scene at the hospital, even pulling out her IV needle. We couldn't convince her, so we had to sign the discharge papers, thinking we could just let her recover slowly at home... Oh, what do we do now? How did it suddenly get so serious?"
