November 30, 2005

• Donations of livers, hearts, etc. though almost common place, is an emotionally difficult subject for many people. But livers and hearts are anonymous, in that they have no identity to the donor , the donor family or the recipient. The face however is a key part of ones identify, and there is a lot more invested in it emotionally by everyone involved. Are you a donor card carrier, could you let a loved ones face be harvested for the benefit of someone in desperate need? What psychological affects could this have on the recipient, their family, and the donors family. As illogical as it may seem, I‘m not sure I could donate my face, or one from someone I love.
• "And there is the possibility that the donor would then carry on breathing." Think about that for a minute!
• Jesus.
• Mind you, I'd still like to see some snaps from the procedure...
• It's a fascinating story. From someone's thoughful action this woman now has a chance at being "normal". Condemn the shallowness of society if you will - but if this is sucessful her life will be enriched by appearing more like everyone else. When I go they can harvest whatever bits they want. A body bits bargain sale! Gomichild giblits - get em' while they're warm - they're lovely! I won't be needing them. Just leave a few token bits to burn and scatter and I'll be fine. We are all part of the big cycle of life. We are born, we die, and then our molecules are dipersed. Being able to give someone a new chance of life - whether through a heart or this cute little mouth I have - means more to me than being whole when they chuck me into a urn (or rather scattered into the sea as is my preference). So you Monkeys better put dibs on bits now. I don't think however anyone will be wanting my liver - except for study purposes
• "But I'm still using it!!"
• What, no hockey remarks?
• Condemn the shallowness of society if you will Fuck that.. her face was mauled by a fucking dog. I'd want it fixed as best as possible, having nothing to do with what people would otherwise think.
• It's scary, definitely. But I'm glad they're going to be able to do this. Right now, people with severe facial disfigurement are doomed to live a life that can't even approach normal. If it's a choice between me having an open casket and someone having a normal life, it's an obvious choice to me.
• In the controversial operation, tissues, muscles, arteries and veins were taken from a brain-dead donor and attached to the patient's lower face. I have half a class of student teachers they can use as donors.
• Lara, gomichild; I think it should be an obvious choice as well, after all you'd be dead. But the whole thing feels so personal, same with corneas. I like to think I’m rational, I don’t believe we will have any further use for our bodies after death, no rapture, zombies or whatever. Yet I still have this illogical aversion to donating my face, or getting one, even one that would look better[if such a thing were possible]. I don’t know I’m clearly not as rational as I’d like to believe.
• well I cannot imagine how difficult, how horrible it would be to try adjusting to being "horribly disfigured". I would gladly donate whatever body parts to help someone who was still living to do so more fully. for all the flap about the emotional/psychological adjustment for the patient (to having a "new face") how much more so to adjust to having no face?? duh.
• I definitely think that the phychological impact of having a new face would be better than those of having no face, but I would worry about what would happen if your body rejected the new face. That would suck, because you would have gotten your hopes up. That said, I would still jump at the chance of a face transplant for a loved one or for myself if it were needed.
• Drugs prevent rejection.
• Anybody tries to impact their face with seaweed is just askin' fer trouble.
• Skrik, I can think of plenty of my students who are qualified donors, also! :)
• When does it stop being a graft that doesn't require immunosuppressant drug therapy and a skin transplant, when it does?
• When the tissue is from a donor, Morrigan. Grafts are taken from other areas of the recipient's body.
• Of course; that was dense of me. Thank you, Chyren.
• I'd have a new face if mine became horribly disfigured. And if I or some I love were to die then donating a kidney, liver etc. would be a no-brainer. But to have the courage/conviction to donate your/their face? I think it's in a different league somehow.
• Donating their face if they were actually dead would be one thing. Donating their face before you switched off the ventilators would be another...
• Aren't there still risks of rejection even when you're on the drugs? Or is that just a tv drama type thing?
• IHNIWITA (I have no idea what I'm talking about), but skin does "regrow" in a way that other transplantable organs can not... maybe that would lower the risk of rejection in the long term.
• OK, yeah, whatever - when do we get to see the pics?
• Face off! they take the face right off. Cool! whats next personality transplants?
• Creepy as it may be, if such a procedure helps a person live a 'normal' life, it's great... but what about transplanted organs' memories?
• Flagpole who is 'Leslie A. Takeuchi'. And how on earth did find him?
• It seems Leslie is a 'she'... and found that article with just a shallow google. I'd heard about that phenomenon before, but can't find the news item.
• Whoa! I think the fundamentalists have an opportunity to save those gay sinners from eternal damnation. From flagpole's article: "A 29-year-old lesbian and a fast food junkie received a heart from a 19-year-old woman vegetarian who was "man crazy." The recipient reported after her operation that meat made her sick and she was no longer attracted to women. If fact, she became engaged to marry a man." It could work for Christians and Muslims, though there would have to be care taken to get a religious match between donor and recipient. If PETA had a captive hospital, they could even turn meat-eaters into vegans. On the other hand, I wonder if the memories of the tranplanted organs are eventually lost and the multitudenous tissues of the recipient would take over. Perhaps more study need to be done.
• Les Yeux sans visage
• A brilliant surgeon, Professor Flagpole, helped by his assistant Wolof, kidnaps nice young path.
• Path, if only that were anything other than bullshit. We could make such a killing bottling up personality traits and selling them to people in little bottles. Want to be more popular at parties? Try this essence of somebody. Unfortunately, aside from anecdotes, it appears that all that cool stuff is stored in the gene expression patterns and interconnections of nerves in certain parts of the one organ nobody will let doctors play around at transplanting :-( On the other hand, if you want to gain or lose weight ...
• Mord - I can't tell if you thought I was serious. You must be much more subtle than I.
• And, randomaction - that's funny in so many ways that I'm (almost) speechless.
• I hope the face they gave her was from a woman...
• path: The idea that other parts of the body could carry memories is an old one, and afaik very difficult to dispel. You can never prove definitively that memory is stored nowhere other than the brain, just that we have found no memory to be stored elsewhere than the brain yet. Many transplanted organs contain nerves, although they have been severed and presumably will not go on to establish new connections. Considering that its not exactly certain how memory is stored in the first place, memories could be transmitted by, say, viruses or bacteria. Unlearned, instinctual behaviors must have somehow percolated down into the DNA somehow. Why not personality traits? In The Cities in Flight, by James Blish, I seem to remember people being given injections of RNA carrying training memories to people who needed to learn something quickly. I didn't think you were being completly serious, but I think its an intriguing idea.
• whats next personality transplants? Speaking of injections, I know a few people who could use some personality plugged into them.
• Hey, there's a picture at this article: Face transplant woman thanks team If you click through the pictures, one is a side view of them wheeling her from the OR. It's not close up or anything, but wow. Her first word was apparently "merci".
• See her new face!
• "The way she was: Isabelle relaxing in her garden in Valenciennes" I only see a picture of her old face, before the dog attack.
• Yeah.
• Face-inating! Eh? EH?
• Get off!
• Oops! I thought it looked way too natural. Sorry, I got thrown off by the headline. (HEAD-line, get it?)
• Drugs prevent rejection. I must be using the wrong drugs.
• Har! *High-fives moneyjane
• Well done, MJ! MonkeyFilter: I must be using the wrong drugs.
• I tell you, it was just a-sittin' there beggin' to be messed with :)
• I bet you've heard that before...
• Face transplant woman to profit from picture sales
• private eye's latest cover gave me a giggle. redesign of pe's website is quite nice. or at least a big improvement.
• Nice.
• MonkeyFilter: It was just a-sittin' there beggin' to be messed with