Hand transplant patient speaks about her experience

April 20th, 2011 - 9:58 pm ICT by Aishwarya Bhatt  

Los Angeles, April 20 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Doctors at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center successfully completed a hand transplant procedure. The procedure is the 13th of its kind in the United States and the beneficiary say the procedure has gone so well that she doesn’t know how she managed to live without hand for almost 5 years.

26-year-old Emily Fennell lost her hand when she had an auto accident in 2006. Doctors were forced to amputate because her hand was crashed by the car. She was however presented with another opportunity to have a hand when a donor came up.

Doctors at UCLA used a 14-hour procedure to attach the hand of a deceased to Fennell’s limb and she has since adapted so well. In a statement released by the hospital, Fennell said that she is now able to do complex things like wiggling her fingers and others.

The hospital welcomed the progress that Fennell has made. The head of UCLA’s hand surgery program, Dr. Kodi Azari, said that Fennell is also doing very well psychologically. He explained that Fennell is gradually accepting the fact that the hand is part of her body. She now calls it “my hand” and not “the hand” that she used to refer to it.

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