Cancer took his penis away and doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston gave him a new one from a dead guy in a 15-hour surgery last week.
Penis transplant was not an option until now
Thomas Manning, 64, a bank courier from Halifax, Mass., understandably went through quite the process to get a new dick. (I’m just not going to be able to keep typing penis)
Mr. Manning has been quite open about the procedure that saw a dead man’s unit become his own.
“I want to go back to being who I was,” Mr. Manning said last week when speaking with reporters. That interview marked the first occasion that Mr. Manning rose from his bed following the operation.
“Don’t hide behind a rock,” (when you can get a dead man’s cock) he said during the interview.
15 hours of surgery is representative of the difficulties that the surgeons faced but they seem to be happy with their work.
“We’re cautiously optimistic,” said Dr. Curtis L. Cetrulo, the team leader and plastic surgeon extraordinaire said following the procedure. “It’s uncharted waters for us.”
That said, Mr. Manning has been admittedly unwilling to have a real look at his new mate which doctors believe will allow for normal urination within a few week time and sex(?) in a few months.
Having sex with a dead man’s penis even if you really want to have sex can, I don’t know but assume, be a daunting walk into something that generally is reserved for books meant to be purchased prior to a long airplane flight.
The first, but surely not the last penis transplant
Presently, at the same hospital, lies another patient eagerly awaiting the outcome of this procedure according to Dr. Cetrulo. The patient in question lost his penis following a car accident that saw him suffer severe burns.
Boston General is not alone in wishing to attempt this new procedure with surgeons at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine poised to replace the penis of a veteran who lost his function in Afghanistan.
This is hardly Frankenstein or cosmetic surgery. In 2014 a South African man received a new penis that ultimately went on to inseminate his partner and boast not just the title of “successful penis transplant” but the most successful that an operation of that type could possible be given the outcome.
Unfortunately, or wonderfully now that the process is possible, there are a number of veterans waiting for similar surgeries in the United States.
“They’re 18- to 20-year-old guys, and they feel they have no hope of intimacy or a sexual life,” said Cetrulo. “They can’t even go to the bathroom standing up.”
While the cost of the procedure is estimated to range from $50,000 to $75,000, in the case of Mr. Manning, the hospital paid for the procedure with the surgeon’s comfortably forgiving their time spent on the taxing procedure, which again ran 15 hours.
Presently, the hospital is only offering the surgery for cancer and trauma patients and has no intention in offering this procedure to the transgender for now.
It truly is an inspiring story given the number of veterans that will benefit from the procedure in the near future. Numerous mental health workers have spoken to the sheer trauma and hell that is a perceived if not literal loss of manhood that comes with penile amputations or loss.
This surgery, if indeed successful, put’s Mr. Manning back in the dating game in his eyes.
“I wouldn’t go near anybody,” Manning said of life following the amputation of his penis.
“I couldn’t have a relationship with anybody. You can’t tell a woman, ‘I had a penis amputation,” he continued.
“Men judge their masculinity with their bodies,” he said.
It really is an inspirational story and we wish Mr. Manning all the best going forward into…well somewhere he wants to be inside of when the time presents itself.
Truly groundbreaking and important
While sex may not be your particular cup of tea or the all important “end all be all” it’s important to note that not having a penis is a man at war with thousands of years of evolution and instinct. Not having the option is not something that should be dismissed. It’s quite literally emasculating and not something that should be given the full impact that it implies.
It’s tremendous, this surgery, in its potential impact especially with those that hardly signed up for military service to lose their manhood. As General Sherman said, “War is Hell,” but injuries that leave you less a man are becoming a thing of the past.
