Nothing Up My Sleeve

 

Several years ago, Albert worked with a plastic surgeon who was collaborating on a new procedure to help a patient grow a prosthetic ear in her arm. Prosthetic ears were previously attached with glue or tape, but more recently they are attached with magnets. Can you imagine snapping your ears on in the morning like an AirPod case?

Patients don’t like detachable ears for lots of reasons. One cancer patient notably envisioned her children running around with her prosthetic yelling, “I have mommy’s ear!”

So we all agree that ears that are secure parts of our heads are preferable. To grow an ear in the patient’s arm, the medical team removed cartilage from the ribcage, carved it into an ear shape, then implanted the contraption into the forearm for several months allowing skin and blood vessels to grow. Once the ear was formed, it was removed from the arm and attached to the head where it belongs.

As I was researching prosthetic ears, I came across this story about an Australian fellow named Stelarc who grew an ear on his forearm as performance art. Lookie ear.

Stelarc started working on this project more than 25 years ago in 1996, but it took him ten years to arrange funding and to find plastic surgeons willing to work on his idea. He explained the delay this way:

"The medical community is essentially a very conservative community and medical practice is about curing people and repairing damage. It seems trivial and unethical, in the sense of a waste of time and effort, to construct an extra ear on the arm of an artist who is perfectly healthy."

 

His discovery confused me. Because giant, rigid boobs seem trivial to me. Girl, those breasts are not gonna change and might be a hassle when you are 70 years old with balance issues. And a lot of the nonsense appearing on women’s faces these days seems like an unethical waste of time and effort.

As ear-y as Stelarc’s art is, here’s a story about a dude who really got the shaft. Malcolm McDonald from Norfolk, England ran into some hard times twelve years ago. His relationship fell apart, he became homeless, and he started using “more and more drugs.”

I suspect that he introduced Staph infections with IV drug use which led to some nasty necrosis. Malcolm described “abscesses which swelled up the size of a tennis ball and popped.” After a while, he developed sepsis which turned his fingers and toes black and then a long-term perineal infection which caused his penis to necrose as well.

In Malcolm’s words:

“My toes started going black, my penis started going black. I knew deep down it was gone and I was going to lose it. Then one day it just dropped off onto the floor.”

According to the British news story, “Malcolm said he threw his penis in the bin.” Bloody adorable the way the British say things like “bin” and “loo.” The chap must have been knackered after that experience with his willie. Time for a cuppa.

So every day was Meatless Monday for Malcolm until his GP offered him an excellent tip. Malcolm was referred to a doctor in London who specialized in phallus reconstruction, a precise in-dick-ation in this case.

The plan was to form a tube from a flap of skin from Malcolm’s forearm, create a urethra within the skin, then attach this fresh salami where the sun don’t shine.

Hypoxemia: below-normal levels of blood oxygen which can arise from many causes.

The sausage-fest was cut short midway. In order to keep the tissue healthy, Malcolm’s newest member was connected to vessels in his left arm “temporarily.” So he got a third arm instead of the third leg he was wishing for. This was back in 2015 and he ended up carrying this short arm pickle around for SIX LONG YEARS.

While one might expect this to be Item #1 on Malcolm's to-do list, the tallywacker transfer was delayed due to a string of missed appointments, transport and scheduling mix-ups, then eventually staff shortages due to the pandemic. Malcolm was miserable with this wang dangler for all those years. Are you ready for the dick pic?

Malcolm lamented that he was “unable to run because the penis waggles about.” Nothing that a fashionable iPhone armband couldn’t fix, I don’t imagine. He could even get one with a storage pocket so it wouldn’t look so conspicuous. “I just like to tote my snacks in there. Oh, yes, hot dogs ARE my favorite!”

He was unable to wear short-sleeved tops in public and couldn’t go swimming with his two children for fear of embarrassment. Maybe he could’ve gotten one of those arm sleeves like Allen Iverson. That would've been slick.

Malcolm complained, “I f*cking slap myself in the eye with it. It’s dead weight.” His left-hand man really caused a lot of problems. It once fell out of his sleeve and flashed a woman in the supermarket. He has burned his arm peen while cooking and even hit his grandma in the face with it while hugging her.

However, Malcolm also described some perks to his extra wiener. As an avid darts player, he learned to “tuck his darts under the penis.” I hope he didn't get pricked.

Malcolm recently offloaded his armload of baloney and got it put back between his legs where it be-schlongs. I wasn’t able to find the British documentary, but here is a video of a few hilarious dudes discussing the story.

Wishing you a lovely week, my friends! Call me if you want to hang out. But only if you don’t have any tricks up your sleeve.

Thank you for reading!