Organ transplants are risky and stressful operations. No matter how “simple” the procedure is, there are countless risks. Even finding an organ donor match is a difficult process that some, sadly, don’t survive.
So just imagine when those organ transplant surgeries get really, really weird…
1.) Ex-husband asks his cheating wife for his donated kidney back.
After Long Island doctor Richard Batista’s cheating wife slapped him with divorce papers, he decided he’d had enough. Batista sued his wife for the return of a gift he’d give her eight years prior: a kidney. Batista’s wife survived after the successful transplant. Their marriage did not, as it lasted for only four more years.
2.) World’s first womb transplant.
Sarah Ottoson was born without a uterus due to a rare genetic disorder. Sarah’s mother Eva donated her uterus to her daughter via voluntary hysterectomy. Swedish surgeons were successful with the transplant, and Sarah can carry a child to term in the uterus from whence she came.
3.) Man donates kidney to his favorite cashier.
Being a great employee has its benefits aside from pay. A cashier revealed to one of her customers that she was on dialysis and needed a kidney donor. The customer liked the cashier so much that he insisted to test if he was a match for the donation. He was, and the transplant was a success!
4.) Fecal Matter Transplants.
Dr. Alexander Khoruts, a gastroenterologist, saved a patient by transplanting a piece of her husband’s excrement into her colon. He mixed a small sample of her husband’s stool with saline solution and delivered it into her colon. It worked, as his patient’s diarrhea vanished in a day.
5.) Girl has three transplanted hearts.
Debbie Ward was born without a tricuspid valve (which keeps blood flowing in the right direction), and had her first heart transplant when she was 15 months old. She was the youngest survivor of such an operation at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. She was just like any other child her age and was active after the transplant. Over a decade later, Debbie collapsed with chest pains on a school bus. The doctors said her heart was failing and gristle was forming on it. They didn’t know why, but the arteries were starting to clog up. The teenager then had her second heart transplant after her 15th birthday. Debbie said her experience inspired her to work toward becoming a pediatric nurse.
6.) Hand to foot transplant.
Chinese surgeons saved a young girl’s hand by attaching it to her leg for three months. She had the hand severed by a tractor and it needed to be reattached immediately. The doctors couldn’t reattach it to her wrist because it was too injured. To save the hand, they put it on her leg for three months and were able to reattach it to her wrist after a few surgeries.
7.) Man has to get a different transplanted penis because his wife didn’t like it.
In 2006, a man with the world’s first penis transplant had the organ removed two weeks later. The man’s penis was damaged beyond repair in an accident the year before, leaving him with an unusable one centimeter-long stump. Although the operation was a surgical success, surgeons had to remove the penis two weeks later “because of a severe psychological problem of the recipient and his wife.”
8.) Man agrees to donate an organ to brother only the stipulation that he stops cheering for his rival team.
A Manchester United fan agreed to give his brother a life-saving cell transplant if his brother would stop rooting for Manchester City’s football club. He created a contract and had his brother sign it.
9.) The woman who receives a kidney transplant from her husband’s mistress.
A Turkish woman found out that her kidney’s were failing. During this trying time, her husband met another woman and began a relationship with her. The husband disguised the mistress as a babysitter, but the wife grew suspicious and found out about the affair. She then pleaded with the mistress to donate a kidney, and she agreed. Now they all live happily together…I think.
10.) Teenager’s blood type changes after a transplant.
This 15-year-old liver transplant patient is the first person in the world to take on the immune system and blood type of her donor. This negates the need to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of her life.
The human body is an amazing thing. Who knew that we can morph and change like that, let alone get whole organs from other people? Who knows what we will be able to do in the future? Time will only tell.
