Here’s a story about hand transplants and their variable results, benefits and risks, and the stories of some of the patients who’ve had them.

Reading the article, I was struck by a number of things. The first is how far medicine has come; I seem to remember reading about the first hand transplant not all that many years ago (actually, about twenty years ago—how time does fly). The second is how problematic these procedures often are. The third is how variable the results can be. Some patients have great success and some end up having the transplanted hand or hands removed, after all that work and hope.

I also was struck by how many of these patients had initially lost their extremities to sepsis, an illness I wrote about here.

When I read about these things, it takes me back to the decade in which I had nerve injuries in both my arms and suffered constant and often substantial neuropathic pain (I’ve described it here and elsewhere). I’m not comparing myself to these patients (thank goodness). Nevertheless, I have had a fairly lengthy experience of nerve injury, and then a lengthy convalescence (a couple of years, actually) and rehab from nerve surgery, and am well aware of the dangers and difficulties inherent in rehabbing any nerve problem. Hand transplants involve a great deal more, of course. But they also involve the reconnection and growth of many nerves, and that takes a long long time.

In particular, the article recalled a dream I had a night or two after surgery on my right arm. I dreamed that my arm had been amputated and I’d been given another arm that was attached at the shoulder with clumsy, Frankensteinsih stitches. At the time, my right arm was essentially unusable, and in tremendous pain. The rehab ended up being fraught with problems—I changed physical therapists about four times before I found one who knew how to help me—and my recovery took two to three years. It’s been about twenty years and I’m now about 85% to 90% better than I was before the surgery, which is practically miraculous and for which I’m very grateful. But a person doesn’t forget an experience like that.

During all the time I was recovering, I didn’t know the outcome. I didn’t even know whether I was recovering. In fact, for many months I was worse than before the surgery. The doctors had told me that my case was highly unusual and that my recovery wouldn’t be typical and might be more difficult than is usual, so I didn’t have any good comparison or even a time frame to guide me. So I remember what it was like to just not know whether what I’d done would help me or hurt me.

I’m not a person who tends to have no regrets. But in the case of my arm surgery I had no regrets, even during the dark times, because I felt I’d exhausted every other possible remedy during the near-decade I’d spent in terrible pain. I really felt I had nothing left but surgery, and I needed to try it even if the prognosis was uncertain. It had taken me a while to find a good surgeon willing to take me on as a patient (as I said, my case was unusually complicated). But one of the greatest arm surgeons in the world said “yes,” and that was it.

Hand transplant patients are rolling the dice and taking far larger risks than I ever did, and mine felt large enough. Some hand transplant patients have been doing okay with prostheses and just want something better. Some are struggling more with prostheses prior to the surgery. Some recover quickly, some slowly, some temporarily, some permanently (so far, anyway). Some go into kidney failure. One of the patients reported on in the article has died, although of a rare problem seemingly unrelated to her hand transplant.

I wish them all well. They’ve already had to deal with enormous hardship, and they’re dealing with it as best they can.