[dropcap size=small bg_color=”#5e9cd4″]F[/dropcap]eel-good news has turned up for eight-year-old Zion Harvey this past month. Overcoming a serious infection in his youth, the boy has been gifted with the lastest in a long line of recent medical miracles, and appears to be taking perfectly to the US’s youngest double hand transplant. Presumably to allow recovery, the procedure has not been made public until a few days ago, and shortly after Zion himself appeared with his bandaged but brand-new hands on display.
Inflicted from a young age with blood poisoning, the young Harvey had to have both his hands and both his feet amputated to save his life from spreading infection. However, in June, his dextrous digits were returned to him by way of an 11-hour-long operation involving 40 people, ranging from simple bone graft to the arduous task of connecting all of the boy’s nerves and arteries to the new hands.
Since his early childhood, Zion has reportedly struggled with his health: at age four he required a kidney transplant – donated to him by his mother, and the later loss of limb through sepsis he had to learn to accomodate. However, accomodate he did, learning to write, eat and reportedly even play video games with his forearms.
The appendage-restoring operation did carry some risk. Several adults have received the procedure with success, but while principally the same,
someone of Zion’s age was still slightly uncharted territory for such a
comprehensive operation. However, Zion’s mother commented that in many ways the risks were the same as the earlier kidney operation, and that if Zion wanted the operation, then she was willing to allow the risk.
Evidently, the gamble payed off.
Inevitably, the sailing has not been totally smooth – Zion still has to take
certain immunosuppressants to stop his body from rejecting his new and foreign pair of hands. However, doctors commented that it is likely this will pose no problems; Zion used the same drugs for the same problem in his kidney transplant case without difficulty, so the future looks bright. As a cherry on the cake, the hospital that performed the operation have stated that they will not hold Zion’s family liable for any costs beyond what his medical insurance covers.
At the press conference, Zion demonstrated small movements in his hands, which medical staff have noted will blossom in time into gripping larger objects, and then smaller ones, and eventually into the fine, dextrous
movements typical of everyday life. He also spoke a few words, thanking the hospital for helping him through his “bumpy road”, and commenting that his new hands felt “weird at first, then good”. The head doctor of the
operation added that Zion woke up smiling, and there “hasn’t been one whimper, one tear, one complaint”.
Reports have yet to surface on his no-doubt astronomical new high scores on Mario Kart.
Joshua Rotchelle
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