Uncategorized

Womb With Review

81 Comments

You know we live in unusual times when the big sex news continues to be topless photos of a hot princess, instead of this – two women in Sweden have received uterus transplants. From their mothers.

Let that sink in.

If the new organs remain healthy and intact, these women will be walking around carrying the wombs that they themselves were carried in. And if they’re able to get pregnant, their children will spring from the
very same fertile ground that mom did. That’s got to be a little eerie.

And how would it feel to the two older mothers? They’re each giving a wonderful gift to their 30+ year old daughters – one young woman lost her uterus to cancer and the other was born without one – but how would you process the thought that your daughter is growing your grandchild in your womb?

I don’t know what manual the 10 Swedish doctors used to perform this operation, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the illustrations were by M.C. Escher.

Are you an organ donor?

81 thoughts on “Womb With Review”

  1. I can’t even give blood. I gave money to our church organ fund. Does that count?
    But my daughter gave a kidney, as did, ah, ah, ah, if I could get some sleep I would know which baboon gave a kidney, too.Me daughter has kidney donor jewelry given to her by her sister-in-law.
    BTW, very cleaver title, Dale. .

    Like

    Reply

    1. Church organ fund! Ha, that’s a good one Clyde. Sailed right past me first time I read it. Reminds me of the old guys who get together regularly for coffee. Inevitably during the course of their conversation, the topic turns to what’s ailing them. They refer to that part of their conversation as “the organ recital.”

      Like

      Reply

  2. Unfortunately, I’m in the same boat as Clyde, I can’t give blood anymore either. But I did give blood, twice a year, between the ages of 18 and 52 when the big C entered my life. I don’t have “good” veins, from a lab tech’s point of view, so the process was sometime arduous and left considerable scaring on my arms. So much so, that more than once I’ve been asked by someone drawing blood if I were ever a drug user.

    It just occurred to me to check my driver’s license, and, by golly, it indicates that I AM a donor. I had better remember to have that status changed next time I get a new license, although I can’t imagine that they transplant too many organs from people my age. Wouldn’t that be a bit like putting an engine with very high miles in a newer car?

    Like

    Reply

    1. My card says I’m a donor, but who would want my discarded parts? I cannot give blood because of my life-long anemia. The one time I tired they found it right away of course.
      I think Robin is the one who gave a kidney.

      Like

      Reply

  3. To answer the other question Dale posed in the post, “how would you process the thought that your daughter is growing your grandchild in your womb?” I think several grandmothers in this country have already answered that question by carrying a grandchild to term in their own bodies after in vitro fertilization. Somehow, I think I would have an easier time processing the transplanted uterus scenario. Of course, having never carried a baby to term, I have no idea what the heck I’m talking about.

    Like

    Reply

  4. Rise and shine Baboons!

    Those pictures look like a catalogue display of thong panties to me. Check Victorias Secret site to determine the etiology of that uterine illustration! I will donate whatever organ the medical people want for somebody else. However like some others here, as a cancer survivor, generally nothing but my corneas are considered fair game. My blood may now be eligible though.

    I LOVE this cool weather.

    Like

    Reply

  5. Good morning. I’m not a donor. I would be willing to be a donor. I have given blood a number of years ago. Somehow, I have not managed to get myself listed as PJ mentioned. My driver’s license doesn’t show that I’m a donor. My body has some miles on it and I’m not sure I would make a very good donor of organs. I suppose there might be some parts that would be acceptable. I don’t know if I would be willing to donate a kidney if asked to give up one of mine. However, I certainly admire people, like Clyde’s daughter, who are kidney donors.

    Like

    Reply

  6. they can have what they want and it says so on my dl. i also have a living will. the people at the dmv always look at me like im nuts to be a donor and have a living will. theyre must be an option for a frankenstein moment in there somewhere but i will not bother myself with the possibilities of what could be done with my parts. parts is parts runs through my brain when i think about organ donations. i may not have the best parts but in that old worn out transplant recipients situation obviously there is a positive transaction available or they wouldnt do the swap,eyes heart liver spleen kidney take em all and god bless. worn out eyeballs are better than ones that dont work. f they get to the point where they have so many parts sitting around they dont need the tired ones maybe they can toss mine out and let them be part of the dust to dust saga destined for the rest of this mortal coil.
    thanks for pointing out the title clyde. that is excellent and i absolutely would have issued it.
    thanks dale. i really like the new morning show and am working on a new name for it.
    happy trails? roy and dale opening would be a nice mark to be a piece of the day. there are not too many notables dales out there and she is one of my favorites.
    congrats to anna on her new full time employee status. woo hoo.

    Like

    Reply

    2. Today Anna is celebrating not just her promotion but her birthday as well. Happy birthday Anna! Hope you have a grand day in your new posh digs.

      Like

      Reply

    3. So I backed up to look at Anna’s post from yesterday. Along with the cool new duties, I hope this includes cool new health insurance and bennies! Well done!

      Like

      Reply

      1. The new gig comes with new bennies and a new cubical that I don’t have to share…thankfully we have had really good medical insurance through Husband’s job – it was a relief when he landed at the U of MN where we knew if nothing else, we would have good medical. (phew) But good 401k again will be really nice. Did I mention a cube of my own…?

        Like

        Reply

        2. I might…I do have Yoda and a group of green army men currently keeping me company (along with the cube buddy – at least for now). Oh and a little white ceramic dog that Daughter made me. None of them are very talkative.

          Like

        3. Happy birthday, Anna! I’d write the Pooh thing, but I think I’ll leave that for someone who can spell it correctly.

          Like

    4. Oh, I was waiting BiB to write that; forgot she’s gone for a few days. So here it is:
      A sincere hipy papy bthuthdth thuthda bthuthdy to you, Anna.

      Like

      Reply

  7. Yep – I’m a designated donor on my drivers license. I haven’t given blood in awhile – and probably wouldn’t have been able to as I have had a spate of anemia that a doc uncovered (high does iron seems to be doing the trick to reverse it). My eyeballs…hadn’t thought much about those. Would anyone want my poor eyeballs post Lasik surgery? Sort of scratch and dent models at this point. 😛

    Like

    Reply

    1. my moms got one eye that did the crash and burn and one she says is ok but it doesnt work at night or as well as she would like at other times. i think if the donor pool were soo large they had a choice it would be wonderful. today it is a big deal. i look to the day when it will be a plug and play kind of swap house.

      Like

      Reply

      1. Mine is an “easy” anemia – we know the source and it’s easily remedied (or at least so it seems). For this I am thankful. I can only imagine the difficulties of having chronic anemia. I know now just how low my energy level was pre-high dose iron, because the change has been relatively quick back to near-normal levels – that low energy, constant lethargy is taxing.

        Like

        Reply

        1. But here’s the thing. I have had this my whole live and have no energy problems. From age 17 to 40 I only slept about 5 hours a night. The only symptoms I have are in the blood tests.

          Like

      1. I do; my blood count always remains right on the bottom line, at best, usually a few points below it. One doctor thinks that is my whole issue and that I do not have FM. But she arrives at this be selective reading of all my symptoms

        Like

        Reply

      3. In my case (after my doc asked how I hadn’t noticed I was tired and pale and I fought the urge to say I’m a Norwegian Minnesotan with an 8-year-old – that’s kind of how I am, by definition), I was told that even eating liver 3 times a day for weeks wasn’t going to give me enough lift. Fine by me, I’m not a fan of liver. And even I can’t eat that much spinach.

        Like

        Reply

  8. I love to donate stuff. I used to donate platelets 5 or 6 times a year and still give whole blood at the quarterly blood drive at work. I have one vein that works almost like a tap. I’m a phlebotomist’s dream donor. I know I’m building scar tissue around that area and will be sorry when they have to move to the other arm with the less reliable vein. I’m also a registered organ donor, with the designation on my driver’s license, I hope something will still be useful to someone when the time comes.

    I also donated a kidney to my cousin. I mentioned here the last time it came up, that it was about 15 years ago, but I did some figuring and realized it was more like 20 years ago. My cousin had been diabetic since he was a teenager and by 45 had nearly every side effect that comes with it, including failing kidneys; he was on dialysis. The night before the surgery, he was very weak and even mentally confused from all the toxins that couldn’t be completely cleared from his system without an actual kidney to do the work. I was fine. Two days later, I was in some pain and loving the morphine button, he didn’t walk down the hall, because he had already lost a foot to the disease, but he wheeled himself into my room. He had no pain, (partially due to neuropathy, which does have that one advantage) and was back to his old self, personality, sense of humor and mental faculties all intact. Three months later he was able to escort his daughter down the aisle, still in a wheelchair, but fully there. He lived five years with my kidney and it was still working like a champ when he died at age 50 from other diabetic complications. That was a weird feeling. I never begrudged him using the organ while he needed it, but it was very strange to have a part of me be not merely dead, but really most sincerely dead. When making the decision to donate, I considered whether I should hang on to it in case one of my kids would ever need the kidney, but decided they had each other to call on and that was probably a cop out for me. It sometimes crosses my mind that I should be taking better care of myself because I don’t have a spare kidney to fall back on if something happens to the one I have, but so far I have had no problems of any kind with being down an organ. Guess I should start a new kidney preservation program. Does that answer your question, Dale? Sorry, it seems I got a bit garrulous. ;-D

    Like

    Reply

    1. It’s me, WP wouldn’t let me add my name so I figured if I clicked Post Comment, it would tell me I needed to add my name. Not. Anonymous is me.

      Like

      Reply

    4. It just felt like the right thing to do at the time. Had the planets not been in perfect alignment, I might not have done it. It’s about the only unusual thing I can drag out when I have to say something about myself at ice-breaker introductions. But thanks for your kind words.

      Like

      Reply

  9. I’ve always been delighted to be on the donor list. We’ve all heard the sad stories about those who linger dreadfully on waiting lists. I am, however, concerned by the idea that signing up for the donor list also makes all of my various tissues available for the commercial tissue markets. I want to learn more about that. People might remember a scandal involving Alistair Cook’s corpse.

    Alas, my heart has too many laps on it to be of much use. My kidneys could probably make someone happy. The liver is well broken-in, but seems to be soldiering on. My eyes seem fuzzy to me, yet at 70 I’ve passed the MN driver’s license eye test again without glasses.

    Like

    Reply

  10. I’m a designated donor on my driver’s license, give double red cell blood as often as I can (about every 4 months, longer wait time than regular blood donors), and I’m registered with the national bone marrow donation group, so could get called any time to donate marrow.

    If I’m healthy when I die (how’s that for a paradoxical oxymoron?!), the sawboneses can have anything they want from my body. I do plan to use all my parts for another 40 or 50 years, though. Not sure they’d be too excited to harvest 95-year-old kidneys or whatever.

    Chris in Owatonna

    Like

    Reply

    1. Nice.
      My wife and I are starting the process of giving our bodies to the U of M. Since we met at the hospital there, it seems a fitting end.

      Like

      Reply

      1. My grandparents did that – which was also fitting as they were both teachers and it was a way to keep teaching even after they were no longer on this mortal coil.

        Like

        Reply

  11. Morning–

    Thanks for all the offers of, uh, …. well, ‘help’ yesterday! Plumber is rescheduled to today and I hope it’s soon because BOY do I have to pee!
    On the other hand, it was an excuse to clean out that storage room where the water heater and water valve are.
    Happy news for Anna on her Birthday!

    I donate blood and platelets and plasma. I bleed fast. My wife has been getting calls for her special platelets. (Being a woman with her blood type who was pregnant gives you special platelets. They’ve been asking for her by name!) But she’s a slow bleeder and has trouble meeting the requirements. But she keeps trying when they call.

    We are both donors.

    As for the transplanted uterus; where’s the ‘I’m my own Grandpa’ song?? It’s that whole circle of life thing coming around! Pretty cool!

    Ben

    Like

    Reply

    2. i would have lost a dollar on betting you would have simply taken the old one out and put a new one in. a plummer? i always remember the story about the plummer who came to the doctors house and looked at the problem with toilet and said: that will be 450 dollars to fix that problem. well the doctor said thats as much as i get for an operation to do an appendicitis. yeah thats how much i used to charge for an appendicitus when i did them too.the plummer replied
      ..

      Like

      Reply

      1. tim, Normally I would, but there’s some extra business involved with a bad wall valve and a ‘blending valve’ and I don’t trust myself that much in tight locations with a flaming torch.

        I did have an interesting conversation with my parents about this. This toilet was brought over from the ‘old house’. The well was dug in 1943. Mom and Dad got married in 1948. Dad dug in the septic tank in 1949. Mom was pregnant with their first child and still using the outhouse and she wasn’t happy about that!
        This toilet has ‘1948’ stamped into the tank.
        A toilet with history. Almost as interesting as the multicolored toilet here at the theater that was used in a parade by clowns!

        Like

        Reply

        2. We got an indoor toilet when I was 12. We kept the outhouse for use when we were outside, which was very handy; it was very solid. cement floor, insulated, fully vented.

          Like

  12. I’m an organ donor on my driver’s license, but I’ve never actually donated anything except blood. My O-negative blood type is in high demand due to being a universal donor. My veins are in mint condition.

    The womb transplants are a little creepy, but fortunately, don’t have anything to do with genetics. The grandchildren might be carried in the grandmother’s womb, but they are different genetically. It creeps me out a little on an emotional level, but when I look at it rationally, I think it’s okay. The women were still of childbearing years and without this donation they would have remained unable to bear children. The (grand)mothers are the perfect donor match – it’s hard to imagine a better match – so, why not?

    Like

    Reply

    1. Lab techs love my veins. One once told me that mine were so accessible I should give blood. So I told to look at why she was drawing blood. I keep getting her when I go in and she says, “It’s Mr Anemia.”

      Like

      Reply

  14. I’m almost up to 8 gallons of blood donated. I’m O+ which is very donatable but not as primo as Krista’s. Last weekend with friends at a cabin, we were discussing universal donor and they (among them 3 nurses) insisted that O+ was universal. I wish I’d been more insistent because I KNEW it was O neg.
    My father was O neg and in the days before blood storage, they wanted him at the ready to donate. So he would get a call during dinner and rush away. That made a big impression so donating blood has always been important.
    I’ve had issues with small veins that roll, being too dehydrated and not making the iron cutoff. I’ve got it down pretty well now. Drink, drink, drink, take iron supplements and eat red meat (which I rarely do otherwise). I do like liver so I treat myself to that occasionally. It’s interesting to hear that Anna and Clyde can’t get their numbers up no matter what they do (unfortunate for them).

    In my wallet, I have a card to donate my brain to an Autism organization. Years ago I signed up son#2 and myself. They want brains from people on the autism spectrum and relatives. I should check to see if they are still around. I don’t think my son has a card or knows about it so I should get that squared away.

    Like

    Reply

  15. Greetings! I think I’m an organ donor now. When I got my new license when we moved, I checked the box. I used to give blood all the time since I was 18 and got my gallon donor pin by the time I was 20, I think. Unfortunately, the Red Cross kindly asked me not to donate anymore about 15-18 years ago because I had a false positive/marker for some weird blood borne disease that I don’t have.

    In college I gave plasma, too for the $5 or $10 they offered. It was time-consuming, but a good time for reading and homework. I miss giving blood — I felt so special and noble. And of course, you gotta love the Cantina afterwards. Those nice people always had good eats available. Giving blood or plasma never even phased me and yes, I had good veins, too. I always watched them put the needle in and watched the blood flow out. I’m always fascinated by medical procedures.

    ANNA – good on ya for finally getting the permanent position. I keep hoping something like that will come my way. Most auspicious.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Joanne, My fingers remain crossed for you.
      The Red Cross also refused my blood for imaginary reasons. After too much time I learned that the smart people at Memorial Blood Center-Minnesota’s own blood bank-would take my blood. You can give them a call http://www.mbc,org They have really good cookies!

      Like

      Reply

    2. I hope that my bit of good fortune foretells of good things for others that have been suffering because of this awful economy as well. I will continue to keep fingers crossed and ears open for you Joanne (and for your charming hubby as well).

      Like

      Reply

  19. I’m down as an organ donor on my license, and I know I ought to give blood but have only done so a couple of times. And Joanne, I don’t know how you watch them put in that needle!

    HB, Anna, and congrats on the job!

    Thank you to all who have been sending me links to the you-tube offerings. I’ve tried everything I can when I right-click, but it may have to do with how old our operating system is… we might have to upgrade, or (horrors) get a new something. Till then, I’m going to check in at the library every so often and catch up on the songs.
    (I am BiR, technically – BiB is Barb in Blackhoof, who I hope will return some day when her goat life is less hectic.)

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.