Lending a Hand

Perhaps you heard about the former Marine from our area who recently underwent a hand transplant at a Pittsburgh hospital? There have been stories about his progress in the Post-Gazette. He lost his hand during an explosion at a 2007 training exercise, and had an operation to attach a new hand from a recently-deceased 18-year-old.

I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I really do think that it’s a great thing, overall. It’s amazing that we have the technology to transplant a hand onto someone and actually make it work and everything. That’s pretty impressive!

On the other hand (ha -- get it!?)… there is no getting around the fact that this has to be a bit creepy, don’t you think? Several thoughts are rattling around my head when I think about this whole idea.

Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is the obvious issue of nose picking. I mean, that would be really weird to be sticking someone else’s fingers up my nose, not to mention conducting other routine bodily hygiene activities. I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes from the movie Airplane!, where one of the men tells another, “Get that finger out of your ear; you don’t know where that finger has been!” Ain’t that the truth.

And I can’t help but think that by conducting this surgery, we simply haven’t learned anything from the past. It’s well documented (in the form of several really bad horror movies) that eventually the spirit of the person who originally owned the hand is going to take control over it again, regardless of the fact that it’s attached to someone else. Sooner or later, the hand, acting on its own, will wind up going mad and start wanting to strangle people, get some sort of vengeance, and whatnot. It’s inevitable.

In any case, I commend this young man for having the courage to go through with this procedure, and I hope that it will give him new opportunities to enjoy life. If I ever meet him, I’ll definitely give him a hand. Errr… I mean, I’ll congratulate him.