Brilliant Disguise

Quick plug: tonight at 6 PM in Room 335 of Norwich City Hall is a Council-hosted budget workshop with the city departments and agencies who asked the City Manager for money. They get to make their case, and handle some (lots, I hope) questions from the alderspersons on the why behind the how much. Where you live probably has something similar in either form or intent. I'd hope that those who do most of the living in this city and who pay most of the taxes turn out (it's a really large room with incredibly tall ceilings-ridiculously tall, to be honest) and follow along in the copy of the budget they've downloaded from the municipal website, and take some notes that will help answer some of those questions each of us has on the budget. I already had one answered and am better for the experience. For those in Norwich, if you care, be there. Sometimes the things you do speak so loudly I can't hear what you're saying (or writing anonymously in the comments section of a local newspaper's online version of the story).

Speaking of newspapers, I came across a small story, five medium sized paragraphs (or so), from Baltimore yesterday that seemed to be about one thing, but was actually about something else. The story was a report on a surgery accomplished over the weekend at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, in which six different patients simultaneously received kidneys from living donors. The previous high (I think saying 'record' makes this whole thing sound cheap, don't you?) was four and I think the organ involved in those transplants were lungs (or not). Reads a little like a Stupid People Trick, I know. I'm not the kindest person in the world and that's the conclusion I landed when I jumped.

What I had started reading because I hadn't fully grasped the headline and what I had concluded the story was about before I read the last sentence was this was some kind of a perverse attempt at a book of records entry and how sad, etc. It turns out, the true story is much sadder.

The recipient and the donors were all related, but not to one another. That is, through a joke God or Nature played on these desperate people, the kidney of a relative, normally regarded as the (best and) first choice for a transplant candidate, was not compatible for them. But, and I mean with a great big B, But the prospective donor's kidney was compatible with one of the other people who needed one. What are the odds of that? And, moreover, what are the odds of having it happen six times? Tremendous researching and cell and marrow typing and testing (and more than a little prayer I suspect) went into creating this pool of six and six.

And, here's the punch line, I guess. The surgeries were done simultaneously (and the article spoke of the number of physicians and supporting staff and the operating rooms and equipment employed and deployed) so that after the transplant operations had finished, the prospective donor could not now change her or his mind. My brother could have just gotten the kidney he needed to live but I've decided my promise of one of mine to your sister ain't happening. And this synchronicity of surgery was the most linear and elegant solution the surgeons, who are (after all) there to tend to the flesh and not to the soul, could devise. Obviated any and all concerns about a double-cross and made everyone generous, albeit at knifepoint (more correctly, scalpel, I suppose).

All this time I thought it was our ability with tools, our thumbs, and our higher consciousness that separated us from the animals.
I want to know if it's you I don't trust, cos I damn sure don't trust myself.
-bill kenny