Wanda Pedersen’s Reviews > Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy > Status Update

Donny narrates flatly, pointing out the anatomical landmarks. As a kid, I used to go on trail rides at a stable near our house. I could never get a sense of how the horse felt about it. Did it mind carrying me around? It didn't seem to, but it also didn't seem to enjoy it. That's the vibe here. I'm another thing they've been asked to do. Disarticulate hip, remove fascia lata, endure Mary Roach.

Not long ago, walking through Target with his wife, D'Amour stopped to examine a jar of moisturizer. It was on sale, but that wasn't what caught his eye. It was the words WITH STEM CELLS. And there they were in the ingredient list: "apple stem cells." D'Amour points out that plant stem cells are found in the shoots and roots, not the fruit of the plant. While it's possible to culture them in a lab, that's unlikely...

According to a 2002 Dermatological Surgery paper I've brought along, the survival rate of scalp hairs transplanted to the lower leg is 60.2 percent. (I have no clue why anyone needed to know this.) Chafoo agrees to do it, if only because it's easier to move a follicle than to argue with a nitwit.

Okay, flatulation is not a word. Not according to the American Heritage Dictionary, not according to Merriam-Webster. Does the textbook Gastrointestinal Physiology, 2nd edition, actually, as the Wikipedia source list suggests, employ the word flatulation? It does not. Wikipedia, unlike your rectum, is unable to tell when it's full of shit.

There are biocompatible sphincters and sphincters crafted from shape-memory alloy. Alas, none appears to have made it beyond the lab. ... One device was tested on a pig intestine, but it wasn't clear to me that a pig was attached. I began to suspect the influence of a single, determined professor, hopeful and incontinent, who every year tasks his students with the design of an artificial anal sphincter.

Pfueller recommended the Arizona run instead. He said it should be almost as well attended, with 194 ostomates and supporters signed up. ... "The Giant Inflatable Colon will be on-site," he added. If you know me, you know that that is, for better or for stupid, the sort of thing that tips the balance. I booked a flight.

I had expressed an interest in nomadic life, so the Mongolian ophthalmologist in the driver's seat, Uno Bayaraa, chose a ger at random...For simplicity's sake, he introduced us all,to the man in the doorway as eye surgeons. As though this were normal, as though ophthalmologists roamed the countryside in herds, like yaks, the man invited us in.

I visited [Norma] Braun in New York before heading to Kansas City. What, I wanted to know, is the problem with positive-pressure ventilators of today's critical care units? Braun took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. (When you're writing about respiration, you notice things like this.) As if to say: where even to begin.

More recently in the annals of philandering, uxoricidal anesthesiologists, we have Khaw Kim-sun, of Hong Kong. Khaw pumped carbon monoxide into a leaking yoga ball that his wife kept in the trunk of her car. When questioned by authorities, he claimed he'd taken the gas from the hospital where he worked to use on rats at home. But as his housekeeper testified, there were no rats in the house. Or anyway, just the one.

Scoring systems* exist to help distinguish limbs worth saving from those that aren't, but the decision ultimately comes down to the surgeon's judgment.

* For example, the Mangled Extremity Severity Score, which I here single out for the dark humor of its acronym.