The miracles of modern medicine
Doctors in the United States are being hailed for opening a new surgical frontier after completing a world first scalp and skull transplant.
Software developer Jim Boysen 55, is expected to leave a hospital in Texas today with a new kidney and pancreas, as well as scalp and skull grafts.
Not only did doctors manage to repair his head, they even managed to match him to a donor with similar hair and skin colouring.
Meanwhile doctors at the National Children's Hospital in Lima, Peru, have performed a more low tech but impressive operation on a teenager with a parasitic worm lodged in his eye.
Instead of using high-tech modern wonders, the team there used a simple basil leaf to lure the worm to the surface where it could be safely removed before causing major damage.
The creature had reportedly been living in the 17-year-old’s eye for about a month.
They are not the first operations to grab the world’s attention and they will not be the last.
Australia and the rest of the world held its collective breath in 2009 when surgeons managed to separate Bangladeshi conjoined twins Trishna and Krishna in a marathon operation. Today the twins continue to amaze in their lives post-surgery.
More recently doctors at Texas Children's Hospital worked for 26 hours to separate 10-month-old Knatalye and Adeline Mata, another pair who won the hearts of onlookers around the globe.
And some medical miracles take even longer to work their magic. Three-year-old Yahya arrived in Australia via Morocco late last year, so surgeons could repair facial deformities. Yahya was born with no eyes or nose leading some to dub him “the boy with no face”.
He is now in the process of undergoing treatment to repair his unusual birth defect.
Unfortunately, Yahya’s recovery was set back last week when heartless thieves stole a customized walker designed to help in his recovery.
Even full face transplants are now becoming more common.
Mother of two Carmen Tarleton, 45, from the United States received one of these life changing operations more than a year ago after her husband savagely attacked her.
Chemical burns covered 80 percent of Carmen’s body and completed destroyed her face. The work of surgeons has helped repair some of the scars though thanks to a groundbreaking procedure which gave her a new face, courtesy of an organ donour.
