slowly. Each new surgery placed additional burden on his already overburdened frame.
The face I’d chosen earlier. The organs were largely feminine, because of their perceived health, and the added fact that women still tend to live on the average longer lives. The musculoskeletal system, however, was largely masculine, owing to its perceived superior health. The gender of the face was largely cosmetic, however, it had potential psychological implications, and given that the majority of Jenson’s exterior physiology was male, so too became his face, and his genitalia.
I did not declare the body a success until the final scar, over the spine, had healed. By this point, Jenson was clinically brain dead. Had he not been suffering from Alzheimers, and had he been able to hold on longer, I might have, from a sense of loyalty, allowed his brain to reside in my homunculus. Or were Einstein’s brain a possibility, perhaps I would have chosen him, instead. What I found instead was David Andress, a man in his thirties, who had been robbed of a distinguished track and field career by myotonic dystrophy; his case was so severe he had spent the last four years in a wheelchair, struggling to breathe. And he was dying, of a lung infection that wouldn’t have even kept him off the field in his youth.
Were I a better man, perhaps I would have spoken to David, and sought his permission. But I feared his reaction, and worse, that he could expose my work at this sensitive stage. David had been given a week by his doctors. His sister was staying with him. I stole quietly into his home, dosed the both of them with ketamine, and removed him back to my lab.
I began by typing David’s HLAs; there were three in common with Jenson- the bare minimum for success, and a far cry from a perfect match. But I’d been prepared for this eventuality. I started Jenson on immunosuppressants. Had I the equipment, I would have taken the extra step of radiation. I extracted more than two quarts of bone marrow via needle from David’s iliac crest (in the rear hip bone), and injected these into Jenson’s blood.
I waited. Jenson displayed no signed of graft-versus-host. I planned to type him again, to see if the graft had taken hold, but David began to struggle breathing. The human brain uses 25% of the oxygen taken in by the body; in less than five minutes, certain brain cells begin to die without oxygenation. I obviously had no room for error. I placed Jenson on an ECMO, not to bypass his heart, but to augment it. Then I clamped David’s internal carotid artery. I connected the artery to the ECMO, in effect combining both bodies into a single circuit. I proceeded by severing the external carotid artery, and the common carotid artery. The eyes presented a particular challenge; due to the volatility of ocular tissue, and its relationship to the central nervous system, Jenson had kept his original eyes; and now, David’s brain had to be transplanted with his.
I placed the bodies side-by side, and exposed the spine. Reattachment of the spinal cord is still not medically possible, so the spinal cord had to come with the brain. David’s was sliced free, and oriented so that it lay beside Jenson’s, and I began the painstaking work of remapping his nervous system. At hour eighteen of the surgery, I nearly dropped my scalpel; I took a large dose of dextroamphetamine, and continued. I’m uncertain how long the entire process took. I slept in fifteen minute increments every eight hours, and increased my dextro dosage 10% with every dose. When the surgery was complete, I passed out. I believe I slept for several days.
I awoke to the sounds of labored breathing. David was conscious. With every breath he’d whisper, “Ouch,” as he exhaled.
“Ouch.”
“Ouch.”
I increased his morphine drip. After a day and a half, he’d regained enough strength to look around the room, and in doing so, he found me. “Kill me, please,” he asked through his new lips.
I asked, “What would you give to be able to run again?” His eyes didn’t change, but the timbre of his voice did.
“What would I have to give?”
His rehabilitation was torture. Even for a man hardly able to move his arms before, it was frustration. But David found reasons to remain optimistic. “My arm. It moved more than yesterday. And yesterday it moved more than the day before.” Truth be told, I hadn’t thought the difference worth measuring; but the difference it made in him was palpable.
Beyond the physical rehabilitation, there was neuronal rehabilitation; many of his nerves were mapped differently than the body he now inhabited. It took him an entire week to learn how to move his left hand without setting his eye to blinking furiously.
Of course, he would never fully recover functionality. Scarred nerve tissue does not transmit signals well; this is, in fact, a portion of why I chose David. A slow physiological response was relatively comparable to a weakened one. Stem cells proved useful in a few places where reattachment failed, and no function was available at all. In a few years’ time, experiments with the exceptional healing abilities of MRL mice could perhaps address this more fully, but neither David nor I could have waited.
It was the fall of 2006 when David asked me what he would have to give. It’s taken the time since for him to heal himself. At the beginning of this year, he stood for the first time without aid. He took great pride in the fact he can now do more push-ups than I, though he seems suspicious I let him win (I didn’t).
He’d been pestering me to go outside. It had been so long since he’d felt the sun or a breeze, smelled fresh air, or seen a pretty girl. I saw through him instantly. “You want to run.” He smiled. “You said I could.” I tried to dissuade him. His body was barely recovered from its ordeals. He said he’d like to go outside as a gift, for his birthday. I assumed, of course, he meant the day I’d given him a new body, which would have given him several more months to heal. “That was my rebirthday. I was born at the end of October.” I relented.
I’d grown fond of David. He had shown himself a man of intelligence and passion, and our forced proximity had given way to a very true friendship. But when he emerged into the day I saw him anew. His face was as bright as the sky; he tore off his shirt, without care for the autumnal chill in the air or the patchwork of scars that stood testament to my own incomplete skill as a surgeon. We walked for a long while, and he smiled and yelled, “Hello” to anyone nearby. Then he glanced at me, a mischievous smile creeping over his face, and he ran.
I chased him several blocks before I stopped to catch my breath. He kept running, several more blocks down to Main Street, then ran back towards me. He stopped a block away, stumbling. I ran to him, as he sat down on the edge of the street. “My heart feels funny,” he said, without removing the smile from his face, “but I ran.”
He fell back. I tried resuscitation; in fact, I didn’t stop until a burly paramedic woman tore me away. “He’s gone,” she said.
“Again,” I told her, without expecting her to understand.
Table of Contents
e-bort
I want to teach. To an outsider, that might seem foolish, perhaps, as women only make up 5% of the workforce. To some, it may seem I’m lowering my expectation to go into one of the few fields open to my gender. But education is important, not simply to society, but to women. We make up 70% of students in college now; it’s the skills we’re learning, and the talents we’re honing, that will allow and even demand that we take up a greater role in our society.
Because my husband is living in Jeddah, his cousin had been acting as my guardian here. He was stricter than my husband, but he seemed concerned for my virtue, and gentle. Several weeks ago, he drove me home, and escorted me to my door. I bid him goodbye, but he did not respond save a grunt, as he seemed to be deep in his thoughts. He forced himself inside, where he forced himself upon me.
I wish I could not recall what happened, but I will choose now not to recount it. When he was finished, still he did not wish a farewell, simply grunted and was gone. I could not sleep; for a time I could not move; when I did, I realized I was as paralyzed by our society as I had been by emotion before. I could not come forward to accuse him in the courts, because my testimony woul
d have counted only as presumption, while his would have been considered fact; it was even possible I could be arrested by the religious police, prosecuted for adultery and divorced by my husband.
After several weeks I came to understand I had become pregnant. I spoke with a doctor, but since the pregnancy was not a threat to my life, even under these special circumstances he could not terminate it. In desperation, I procured pills from WomenonWeb.org. I prayed many nights; I could not be certain if Allah or the Prophet agreed that I planned “the murder of a living soul” as some told me. I corresponded with the prescribing physician from the site, but it was not until I discovered that he was a she that my mind became clear.
I told my husband simply that his cousin and I did not get along; had I even mentioned that he was abusive, without detailing further the extent, I believe my husband would have killed him. I did not want another murder on my soul, nor on my husband’s, and I feared we could not afford to pay his blood debt. My husband had one more cousin in the city, who agreed to escort me. At first it was humiliating to have a boy half my age guard me. But when I recognized it as a choice, I came to treasure it.
Table of Contents
Undisciplined
This is not what I signed up