When a person receives a limb donation, how do surgeons “wire up” the nerves so that the recipient can use the limb and feel sensation from it?
In: Biology
I’ve known about this since a young age.
My dad when he was 16 worked in a factory. It had a shop saw that would automatically come down and make 3 cuts.
One unfortunate day the chop saw caught his shirt and sliced his arm in 3 right at the elbow. The saving grace was that it went right at the elbow and couldn’t slice through the elbow as easily as the rest of his arm.
He basically had to constrict it and call 911 himself as several of his coworkers fainted when they saw what happened, and that his arm was literally hanging by skin.
When this happened to him it was early 70s in Toronto 1972/1973. They had very very very very limited experience with this procedure(he was one of the first 3-5 people they had done it on, but never for pretty much an entire arm) and for the first year of his recovery they honestly didn’t know if they had connected all the nerves and tendons back properly and if it was “wired” correctly.
He was very fortunate and they did manage to do that so he infact got full use and mobility of his arm back after about 2 full years of recovery(it took 1 year for the tendons and everything to heal properly before he could fully start rehab).
He has 3 insanely gnarly scars in succession on his arm. One right above his elbow one directly on it and one directly below it.
one of the nerves is so exposed on the back of his elbow that if he would normally hit his funny bone as one does it literally buckles him over in pain. (There were a couple times as a young child(4-6) where I thought it was funny and would go for that nerve when we were play wrestling, I would hit that nerve and feel like the David defeating Goliath, but when I was 6 and did it I saw how much pain I caused my dad while he was just trying to have fun and play wrestle and never intentionally did it again).
Considering how insanely vulnerable that nerve is I’m both surprised and impressed with how few times I’ve seen him tap it. But I guess it’s like Achilles protecting his week spot, he knows it’ll take him down so he’s extra cogniscent of it.
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