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Has science gone too far?

The answer is yes. Yes, it has.

This is exactly what it looks like: a woman with a foot where her knee should be, but backwards.

This East Yorkshire woman had bone cancer, so they removed her thigh and knee. Then they moved her lower leg up to replace her thigh, but turned it around facing backwards. That way, her ankle bends in the same direction her knee used to.

It makes a certain sense. I get it. It’s not unlike having a big toe grafted to replace a thumb. But…I dunno. I could maybe, after a lot of years, get used to having a toe on my hand.

Having my foot where my knee should be but facing backwards rattles me on a deep, baseline body image level. I can’t explain it. Just, trust me…I would freak the fuck out. Every day until they took it offa me.

This lady looks happy, though, so who am I to judge? brrrrrr

Comments


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: October 28, 2014, 10:52 pm

” Having my foot where my knee should be but facing backwards rattles me on a deep, baseline body image level. ”

Having discovered on more than one occasion in my life that I had my head firmly up my arse, I can assure you that one can get used to almost anything – in time. 🙂


Comment from Nina
Time: October 29, 2014, 1:58 am

I can’t imagine the benefit of that, actually.


Comment from drew458
Time: October 29, 2014, 3:00 am

Remember those silly picture flip books you had as a wee kid? You could flip different animal heads onto various animal bodies and your choice of legs. And make a giraffe-o-chicken-gator. This reminds me of that.

I don’t know why they couldn’t put in an artificial knee joint and a titanium thigh bone. We do it here all the time, I think.

Pretty stupid.


Comment from Sgt. Keller
Time: October 29, 2014, 3:32 am

Dr. Lexus was a physician in charge? His first wife was ‘tarded. She’s a pilot now.

Probably somewhere in Malaysia… or sumthin…


Comment from Can’t Hark My Cry
Time: October 29, 2014, 11:09 am

I’m with Nina and drew458. What’s the point? Prosthetic legs can do totally amazing things these days–and the foot actually touches the ground and is useful. Unless they shorten her other leg, I don’t quite see what she’s going to do with that foot.


Comment from caseyreno
Time: October 29, 2014, 11:19 am

This may be useful for moving laterally on steep slopes. West Virginia comes to mind…


Comment from thefritz
Time: October 29, 2014, 1:16 pm

A great Halloween post…Bwaaaaahaaaahaaaa

By the way, know what her middle name is??? Ilene.


Comment from Simon S
Time: October 29, 2014, 1:23 pm

It’s obvious. She’s actually a haggis and this lets her run around the mountain, as caseyreno points out.


Comment from Carl
Time: October 29, 2014, 2:01 pm

The surgeons know what they are doing. She now has a fully-functioning knee joint to which a prosthetic lower leg can be attached. Much better than having an artificial knee joint.


Comment from MikeW
Time: October 29, 2014, 2:15 pm

Hmm, talking about reversed body parts… remember the scene in Spaceballs where Mel Brooks had his head on backwards?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdAMhKEkFfc

Yo, thefritz, you do know the whole [non-PC] joke, right?


Comment from Stark Dickflüssig
Time: October 29, 2014, 4:34 pm

Yeah, but what if they want to reuse the foot later? Gotta keep it alive, you know.


Comment from A Foot! A Kingdom For A Foot!
Time: October 29, 2014, 7:19 pm

There’s plenty of good places to put a foot on.
They could overnight it to Venezooebola.


Comment from OldFert
Time: October 30, 2014, 2:19 am

Told my wife about it, and to my surprise she was familiar with the procedure. Two prosthetists she knows have the same ankle-as-knee setup. Makes it a lot easier to fit and use the lower limb prosthetic. I did a search and found out there’s even a web page for the procedure, http://www.rotationplasty.com/.


Comment from thefritz
Time: October 30, 2014, 3:56 am

Mikew…you mean,

What do you call a one legged woman?…Ilene.
What do you call a one legged Chinese woman?…Irene.

I got a million of ’em…


Comment from Ripley
Time: October 30, 2014, 5:25 pm

Wait, I thought that was a normal result for NHS appendectomies…


Comment from J.S.Bridges
Time: October 30, 2014, 6:30 pm

Yes, well…even knowing there’s an allegedly-good reason for that…

It still just – looks wrong, so wrong, y’know?…

Once the later ops that make that ankle over into a “knee” are presumably done – well – pretty sure I don’t rally need to know what gets used for a “new” knee-cap…

Still – could be worse, I s’pose. At least this way, she won’t have to put up with any nasty jokes about being “a foot short”, right?


Comment from JuliaM
Time: October 30, 2014, 7:46 pm

I look at that picture and all I can think is….

“One of us… one of us…one of us!”

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