Chapter 18
Grandmother Malseon was loud from the reception desk onward.
Her voice was so strong that Gain could hear every word from the consultation room.
Gain smiled without realizing it.
A short while later, Nurse Eunjae carefully guided Grandmother Malseon inside.
The pale old woman who had once been carried away from the market by paramedics was nowhere to be seen.
Today her face had much healthier color.
"Oh my, Doctor... I'm here."
Before even sitting down, the grandmother pushed forward a heavy bundle she'd brought.
It was full of wild chives and mugwort she'd gathered herself.
"You didn't have to bring all this."
Grandmother Malseon grabbed Gain's hand.
Her hands were those of a farmer who had spent a lifetime working.
"If you hadn't been there that day, I might've died right there in the street. The ambulance people said I was unbelievably lucky. They said some young doctor gave me perfect emergency treatment and that's why I survived. I'm so grateful. Truly."
"No, Grandma. I only did what I should. How are you feeling?"
At Gain's gentle question, the old woman frowned slightly and lowered her voice.
"Don't even ask. At that university hospital, they kept saying scary things about cutting open my belly and doing surgery..."
She sighed.
"I told them I had to come to my doctor. Said if they didn't let me leave, I'd rather drop dead right there. So I forced them to discharge me. Felt like this old body of mine wouldn't get better unless your hands touched it again."
Gain smiled faintly at the grandmother's blind trust.
"You came to the right place. Let's examine you first. Could you change into an examination gown in the changing room?"
A short while later, the grandmother lay on the examination table with a sterile drape covering her lower body.
Gain carefully lifted the sheet.
The atmosphere in the room immediately grew heavy.
Tsk...
Gain's brow deeply furrowed.
It was much worse than expected.
The cervix had completely protruded beyond the vaginal entrance.
It looked like raw flesh with the outer skin peeled away.
The tissue should normally have been bright pink.
Instead, decades of rubbing and pressure against underwear and thighs had caused it to become dark and hardened from hyperkeratosis.
She must've been in terrible pain and discomfort.
At stage three, the uterus wasn't the only thing descending.
As the uterus dropped, it dragged part of the bladder wall downward too.
The swollen shape looked unstable, almost like a water balloon ready to burst.
Whenever the grandmother inhaled, the red mass shifted as if it might fall out completely.
"What did the university hospital say?"
A strong smell of urine and blood filled the room.
Even the scent of wild chives couldn't hide it.
With the cervix exposed outside the body, chronic inflammation had likely caused constant discharge.
The smell around the grandmother's lower body was strong enough to resemble a restroom.
Hmm...
Wearing gloves, Gain examined the area.
Among the soft, sponge-like tissue were rough, hardened inflammatory areas that felt almost metallic.
"They said something about sewing it closed. But how old am I? Cutting open my belly at my age? I couldn't do it. Too scary."
Gain nodded.
As expected.
A university hospital outpatient clinic was often more intense than a battlefield.
A hundred patients could pour through in one morning.
Professors had barely three minutes per patient.
There was no time to test different pessary sizes one by one, make the patient stand, squat, cough, and check whether the device stayed in place.
Compared with all that...
A colpocleisis that could be completed in fifteen minutes was a much cleaner and more certain solution.
"There is another method besides surgery. It's called a pessary. It's a silicone ring placed inside to support the uterus so it doesn't fall down."
"There is? Then why didn't they tell me?"
"Because the pessary needs to be removed, cleaned, sterilized, and reinserted every three to six months."
Gain could estimate the size by sight alone.
"Nurse Eunjae, please prepare a size seventy pessary."
Jo Eunjae soon brought it over.
When Gain showed the round silicone ring to the grandmother, her eyes widened.
"You're putting that inside me? Won't it hurt?"
"I'll make sure it doesn't hurt."
"What even is that thing? Looks like one of those baby toy rings."
To the grandmother, it was only a piece of silicone.
To Gain, it brought back memories of the backyard of a temple filled with the smell of mana in another world.
Back then, I made them from Fairy Tree sap.
I never could've gotten it without Serenia's help.
Even in the fantasy world, elderly nuns had come to Gain with embarrassing problems.
All their lives, they had knelt on cold floors to pray five times a day.
Before sunrise.
Morning.
Noon.
Evening.
Late at night.
The repeated increase in abdominal pressure eventually weakened their pelvic floors and allowed their uteruses to descend.
Many of them mistakenly believed it was divine punishment.
Gain had to make pessaries for them.
So she'd boiled Fairy Tree resin in the temple yard.
The resin had excellent antibacterial properties.
Once hardened, it became soft and elastic, almost like rubber.
