I'm sure many of you have heard about the women in France who underwent a partial face transplant. Her original face was severely disfigured when she was attacked by a dog. Now the same doctor and scientists who helped her are trying to get permission from ethics councils and the like to begin a full face transplant.
This is an interesting procedure. A face from a donor (obviously no longer living) will be removed and then transplanted unto the recipient. The recipient will have to take immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of their life so that the new face is not rejected by their body.
Think about the implications here....
this person will have a new face. They will not look like they did before. Their new face will resemble the donors but will be stretched over their bone structure resulting in a morphed look.
The doctors are having to do extensive psychological research on their patients before they chose the first one. Would you be able to handle waking up in the morning and when looking in the mirror seeing "someone" else?
What really is in a face? SO many emotions are expressed just through facial features. Those close to this patient would have to get used to looking at "someone" different.
You could also extrapolate this to an even scarier possibility. When someone who is considered really good looking dies. Their face could be sold to someone who wants to look better. Now, we are not even close to being in this kind of situation right now, but who knows what could happen in a decade?
Just something to think about.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,1668775,00.html
Meg
2 comments:
Wow. That is reeally something to think about...
Don't know what I would think about it all... but as far as getting used to it on oneself and family and freinds getting used to it, I bet they would after a bit. I mean, the same thing would have to happen if someone's face was severely disfigured - you would have to get used to that face if they did nothing about it... like, my mom's face, after her 3rd (and last, so far at least) brain tumor removal, looked quite a bit different than it did before her surgery - basically it looked like she had had a major stroke or something, and we just got used to it after a while - 'twas quite shocking at first tho, and of course, now it's quite a bit better... anyways, that's pretty crazy to think about.
Oh, and thanks for the comment(s) (didja read my post?) and telling me to clean up my blogroom, 'cause I actually did. :-)
God Bless!
Oh yes, and one more thing - so didja here I'm looking at being on your side of the bay next summer-fall? I'm applying to go to Deakin U. in Geelong to study abroad and hoping to stay w/someone from the Geelong church as I'm there...
Hopefully it all works out!
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