Emily Herrington, Touch Hunger: The story of hand transplants (Introduction)
Abstract:
No one knows more about the value of human touch and human hands than a person who has lost a hand, or both their hands, and received a hand transplant. In the Introduction to Touch Hunger: The story of hand transplants, the personal problem of hand loss and the hypothetical promise of hand transplantation are introduced through the story of Rich Edwards, a chiropractor who lost the use of both his hands in a fire and sought experimental double hand transplantation as a last grasp at restoring his vocation and relational quality of life. Based on oral history interviews with hand transplant patients and their caregivers and romantic partners, TOUCH HUNGER explores the possibilities and limitations of life with transplant hands compared to life with one or no hands following catastrophic injury or amputation. What is it like to undergo such dramatic experimental surgery, in favor of existing reconstruction or prosthetic options? Are hand transplants successful from patients' point of view, especially patients like Rich Edwards, who deeply valued his sense of touch? How do partners and family members of hand transplant patients feel about their loved ones' donated hands, or their role in maintaining a successful outcome for transplant?
In alternating chapters with oral history accounts, TOUCH HUNGER tells the story of hand transplants as a global medical experiment. Being the first organ transplants performed to improve a patient’s quality of life, rather than to save it, experimental hand transplants in 1998 and 1999 created a new medical field bridging plastic surgery and transplant immunology: reconstructive transplantation. The backstory of institutional-political dynamics giving rise to new hand transplant programs and therapies helps widen the frame of the book and in many cases, gives context to hand transplant patients’ grounded observations and sense impressions. The chapter closes by presenting the structure of the book, its methods and its rationale.
Bio:
Emily Herrington is a writer, artist and teacher living in Pittsburgh with her partner Paul and a cat named Iggy. She has a BA in English from Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky and a MS in Science Writing from MIT, and she worked several years as a science writer and communications officer before moving to Pittsburgh where she earned a PhD in Communication and a MA in Bioethics in 2019. Emily’s oral history research with hand transplant patients inspires her work in health policy advocacy, most notably with the Reconstructive Transplant Peer Network, a group of hand and face transplant patients and their partners who meet monthly and work with surgeons to help shape policy and processes for reconstructive transplant patients.
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