Jeff Kepner, the first person in England the US to receive two hand transplants, is now home after four months of recovery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. From LancasterOnline.com:
"Ex-county man ready to go home after double-hand transplant" (via Fortean Times)In a strange way, the double transplant was a bit of setback for Kepner, who had lost part of both of his arms and legs in 1999. Doctors amputated the limbs in a bid to save his life after Kepner came down with a strep infection that plunged him into a coma.
After the amputations, Kepner was outfitted with prosthetic hands and feet and forged on with his life.
"He had gotten quite used to his hooks," his mother says of her son's artificial arms. "He could dress himself. He could drive his car. He could do a lot of things..."
Now in therapy (after the transplants), he is learning how to pick up small items, like cotton balls, and catch a ball, but he still has no feeling in his fingers. The nerves grow about an inch a month from where the hands were attached, at the forearm.
"They told him it will be at least until the end of the year before those nerves get down into those fingers," Doris Schafer said. "Then he'll begin to do things."
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I think this story has nothing at all to do with England (as in the United Kingdom)
This seems to be from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA.
(I actually looked cos I was waiting for anti healthcare reform people to leap on this as an example of how English people need to go to a country with fully private healthcare...)
I am curious how this fits into the U.S. healthcare debate - he had to travel here for this procedure.
I thankyou, KPKPKP.
Maybe we could not hand ammunition to pro insurance company people?
Especially when the story is not relevant in any way.
That's Lancaster PA.
Perhaps this was from the Amish News Network in Lancaster... where all non-Amish are "the English"?
does the amish news network send the news by smoke signal? Pamphlet?
I wonder how many billions of dollars he had to pay for those new hands. Probably he'll be in debt up to his eyeballs for the rest of his life.
Unless he was a very rich man to begin with. And then that goes to show that only the extremely rich can afford to have hands sewn on.
#7
I wouldn't be surprised if costs were lowered due to it being experimental work.
Any doctors/experts able to comment?
(Please hurry up and remove the false reference to England, this story is being mined by insurance shills.)
On the bright side, he can now cash a check at Bank of America in Tampa Florida.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/01/bank-of-america-dema.html
#9
Interesting.
This man's finerprints (presumably) have now changed.
There must be myriad situations where that does not compute
Now he can bank with BofA!!!
(on a more serious note: Science, ftw!!!!)
Better hope that the donor didn't have a criminal record.
Reminds me of that classic horror movie The Hands of Orlac, wherein a famous pianist loses his hands after a plane crash and gets new hands that formerly belonged to a serial killer who choked people to death. Hope this guy has better luck.
seaboard regard signing out...
According to the source story (we all do read the linked source, right?) the man appears to be from Augusta, Georgia, and had his surgery performed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So I don't know where England fits into this.
However, vis the health-care debate, the man does not appear to be at all wealthy (he worked as a manager in a Borders bookstore), and likely had the service performed pro-bono. I have to wonder, were the man in fact from England, whether NHS would have approved giving him a procedure like this when he seemed to be functioning reasonably well with the prosthetics.
He may not have traveled here from England, but they did have to bring in a specialist doctor from Uberwald to perform the procedure.
Do you seriously think any insurance company with a legally defensible option to refuse payment for this procedure would pay for it, thus taking money out of their bonuses and shareholders' dividends?
This type of procedure would almost certainly be experimental (and risky) anywhere.
To restate the genuine situation in Britain:
if a treatment is available privately but not on the NHS, those with money or expensive insurance are free to pay for it.
Rich British people get the same treatment as rich Americans.
An American who is unemployed has to rely on charity or bankruptcy, or be lucky enough to qualify for medicaid.
Why is everyone arguing about healthcare when we could be focusing on the important part: this guys arms looking really weird.
It's an interesting, and important surgery, to be able to give limbs back to an amputee. But, the physical appearance is honestly really weird and creepy looking. I've seen him once, on a news story. It's creepy looking where the new hands and forearms meet his arms for they are differently sized and proportions.
But that's still great news he has new functional new hands.
@18 Kind of like that guy in the Burger King commercials.
What if the person they belonged to before was a serial masturbating nose picker?
What if the person they belonged to before was a serial masturbating nose picker?
Then the hands will thank the heavens for this turn of events. (BTW can you imagine how hard it is to do both at the same time?)
What the fuck? I didn't think we could do nerve growth yet. Am I just totally out of the loop on this one? Or fundamentally misinformed? I basically thought that nerves, once cut, were not in the habit of getting operational again
Where did you get "first person in England" from? The article makes no mention of England. Lancaster is in eastern PA. He traveled maybe 6 hours on the turnpike to get to Pitt :P
@22 - the problem is nerve reattachment to the spinal cord or spinal cord damage , but nerves themselves regrow.
fwiw, I enjoyed "Beyond the Zonules of Zinn” by David Bainbridge its an enjoyable read if you're looking to catch up on where neuroscience is up to nowadays.
uncorrected lancaster PA vs uk - awesome fail
"What if the person they belonged to before was a serial masturbating nose picker?
Then the hands will thank the heavens for this turn of events. (BTW can you imagine how hard it is to do both at the same time?)"
Give me five minutes and I'll let you know.
Um... Better make it ten minutes.
(Fry) My Nails! What did you do to my NAILS?"
(Robot Devil) I cleaned them!
I found out the UCLA surgeon who fixed a broken (non-union) bone in my wrist two months ago was one of the lead surgeons for this double hand transplant procedure. He did a good job with my wrist!
"Do you seriously think any insurance company with a legally defensible option to refuse payment for this procedure would pay for it, thus taking money out of their bonuses and shareholders' dividends?"
Uh, no, where did I claim that? I speculated the treatment was given pro-bono by the providers. Clearly, Mr. Kepner is not wealthy. But if in England the choice is between NHS and expensive private insurance, are there government-financed hospitals, such as the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which offer pro-bono work like this?
The statement about the nerve growth is misleading. As it is with all amputations, he will _never_ have feeling in his hands, because sensoric nerves do not regenerate! Motor neurons, on the other hand, are able to branch out and reconnect with their endpoints. Sometimes.
So what the doctors are probably hoping for in this case is that the dead end motor pathways in his arms extend new connections down into the transplanted hands.
Yes, we are still deep in the stone age when it comes to repairing nerve connections.
This is quite an advance in Medical science... but the question is how many people are able to benefit from such advances... Most of the time the insurance does not cover the expensive operations... and the bill needs to be payed by the individual... What I don't understand is that rather than spending so much money in R&D which is available to a select few... why not divide the money into R&D and making healthcare available for the masses....