illegitimi non carborundum

Wow, this is totally weird. This dude actually got a penis implant, and then had it removed. Here's the article:

BEIJING (AFP) - A Chinese man who was the world's first recipient of a penis transplant had the organ removed two weeks later due to a "severe psychological problem," a leading medical journal has revealed.

The man's penis had been damaged beyond repair in an accident, leaving him unable to urinate normally or have sexual intercourse, the report in European Urology said Tuesday.

Doctors at a hospital in Guangzhou, capital of southern China's Guangdong province, performed the surgery last year using a penis from a 22-year-old brain-dead man.

But, just two weeks later, they cut the attached organ off after the man and his wife had difficulty accepting the donated penis.

"The recipient could urinate smoothly in a standing position at day 10 (after the operation)," said the report which was posted on the European Urology website.

"At day 14 postoperatively because of a severe psychological problem of the recipient and his wife, the transplanted penis regretfully had to be cut off."

There was no signs that the man's body was biologically rejecting the transplanted organ, it said.

Although penis transplants had not been performed before, doctors worldwide have successfully reattached penises that have been cut off, it said.

In an article for European Urology, Jean-Michel Dubernard, a French doctor who was involved in the world's first face transplant last year, said recipients of transplanted hands and faces suffer psychological consequences.

"Psychological consequences of hand and face allografts (transplants) show that it is not so easy to use and see permanently a dead person's hands nor is it easy to look in a mirror and see a dead person's face," Dubernard wrote.

But this can change over time as the transplant becomes more sensitive and the patients adjust to them, he said.

"Clearly, in the Chinese case the failure at a very early stage (day 14) was first psychological. It involved the recipient's wife and raised many questions. We have no information on the initial accident."

According to a report in the Guardian in 2001, surgeons were forced to amputate the world's first transplanted hand from Clint Hallam, a New Zealander, who said he wanted the "hideous and withered" hand removed because he was "mentally detached" from it.

I can't imagine what it's like to have another person's body part attached to me. Talk about feeling sort Frankensteinian - especially when it's part of your genitals. Kind of cool that they surgeons can actually perform this operation, but kind of fucked up as well. Where does it stop, really? Are we heading down a road of people with all kinds of random body parts sewn together? Freaky.