- Surgical techniques have literally
become a medical marvel.
We're about to take a look
at some of the most miraculous transformations
through surgery in these few videos.
Let's get started.
- [Reporter 1] Ryan Wade is five feet, seven inches tall.
He's come to orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Kevin Debiparshad,
for a groundbreaking limb lengthening procedure.
- After we've given you that additional height,
you'd probably be sitting at very close to 5'11".
- [Speaker] The procedure involves implanting
a steel device into the upper bone on both legs.
- In the majority of cases, this procedure is done
on individuals with leg length discrepancies,
meaning that one leg is significantly longer
than the other and as a result,
you can't have a normal quality of life
or at least you have a more difficult quality of life.
Now, to do this as a cosmetic procedure is really risky
given the fact that first, essentially what you gotta do
is break the bone.
Then you gotta insert these rods
that will periodically be extended,
creating a little section separating the bone
which will then allow the bone to heal.
Then you'll do it again
and again and again.
I think if you want to grow like 50 millimeters
which is about two inches,
that can happen in a period of two months, let's say.
- [Reporter 1] The remote control signals the device
to pull the bones apart one millimeter at a time.
The body makes new bone to fill in the gap.
- Yeah, and there's also ones that
have an outside adjustment where people,
you'll see them on their legs wearing this tool.
- I've got another 70 years left on this planet
and I want to enjoy it to the full extent.
And this is something since I've been 14
that I've always wanted to do.
$75,000 towards getting tall.
I'm picking getting taller.
- There's, I believe a condition
called short person dysphoria
when it comes to having dissatisfaction with one's height.
And there are some scientific studies
that show those who are taller
have higher satisfaction with life,
have higher salaries, higher positions.
Correlations not causations here.
And this is a very extreme surgery
that requires months of healing, rehab, risk,
infection obviously is the primary issue
and obviously permanent damage if it does go wrong.
- [Reporter 1] Now, three months
of grueling physical therapy begins.
- That's stiff.
- [Reporter 1] Ryan's muscles needs to be stretched
as his bones grow.
- People will have negative things to say
about bariatric surgery, for example,
but that has proven benefits to prolong life.
We've seen diabetes resolve and go away
after bariatric surgery.
You're not just improving your quality of life,
you're prolonging your life
and it's documented and it's proven.
Here, it's a very subjective thing.
I would encourage anyone who's considering this
to first think about the mental health component of this
way before undergoing any kind of physical treatment.
- [Reporter 2] Born in Turkey in June, 2018,
rare conjoined twins, rarer still to be joined at the head.
Even more rare that they are boys.
- The most commonly born conjoined twin are female.
Like 70% are female.
They can actually be attached anywhere.
Head, torso, trunk, et cetera.
- [Reporter 2] Their parents, Omar and Fatima Everonsoll
told that to do nothing would shorten their lives.
To separate them would mean one would die.
- That's a very difficult decision.
Yeah, the survival rate is like
in the single digits to teens for conjoined twins.
[Reporter 2] Channel Four News had exclusive access
to the more than 40 hours of operations.
- Wow.
- [Reporter 2] It has taken seven weeks
from the first operation to this moment.
After the first 18 months of their lives
being head to head, they can now face each other-
- Wow.
- [Reporter 2] Look into each other's eyes.
- These separations are so difficult
'cause a lot of times these children will share
a vital organ and separation can mean life or death
for a single one of them, if not both of them.
(guitar strums)
- Oh, is this brain surgery?
Yeah, so this is an awake craniotomy
where the patient is woken up during a removal
of brain tumor to make sure none
of the musical movement nerve portions
of the brain are impacted.
- I think I asked him at that first interview,
are you willing to play guitar?
- You know, what is everyone gonna think when I'm jamming?
Okay, I play electric guitar, I love metal.
I don't know very many acoustic songs.
(laughs)
- I love that that's his concern.
Not that he is going for brain surgery
but that he usually plays a different type of guitar.
- The brain actually has no pain fibers.
- Yeah, so the brain doesn't have the pain fibers
meaning the nociceptors but the padding around the brain,
the covering over the brain, the meninges,
they have pain receptors.
That's why you can get a headache.
(gentle guitar music)
- Wow, that's amazing.
- I don't think there's a single part
of the brain which controls music.
When I think of music in general,
you know, I've used the word passion
but it comes from the heart.
- Music is one of those things that relies
on several portions of the brain
'cause it has to work with timing,
coordination, creativity, interpretation,
hearing yourself, visual cues,
space orientation of where your hand is,
muscular control.
All those are different portions of the brain.
So of course it's not just one portion
of the brain and certainly not the heart,
no matter how romantic that saying does sound.
- [Reporter 3] During a routine ultrasound,
doctors discovered a tumor on Margaret Boemer's unborn baby
and operating on her while she was in the womb
was the only option to save her.
- I wonder how they knew what type of tumor it was.
- We knew that if we didn't choose the option
of emergency surgery that night,
that within a day or so she would pass.
- I would love to know how they knew
that that was to be true.
It must have been putting pressure,
exhibiting what we know as mass effect
on circulation or breathing.
Because a lot of times it's very difficult
to predict how certain tumors would behave,
especially in utero.
- [Reporter 3] At 16 weeks, the scan revealed
a rare tumor on Lynlee's tailbone.
By 23 weeks, it had grown to the same size as the baby
and her heart began to fail.
- So basically what happens is
sometimes the tumor grows so rapidly
that it requires so much blood flow,
so much circulation through vascular neogenesis
where essentially the tumor starts releasing
these factors that encourage blood vessel growth.
It essentially starts feeding itself
but taking away from the life form
that initially birthed it
for lack of a better word, or created it.
That's why a lot of times when I have a patient who comes
in with weight loss that was unintended and significant
meaning more than just a couple pounds here or there,
we investigate it to make sure
that it's not a a tumor or cancer.
- [Reporter 3] She was outside of the womb
for just 20 minutes as surgeons removed 90% of the tumor.
- Wow.
- [Reporter 3] 13 weeks later she was born again in June
and the rest of the tumor was removed.
- [Camera Person] What would you consider
to be her real birthday?
(laughs)
- The official birthday,
'cause she went back in the womb, it doesn't count.
- [Reporter 4] Oscam had surgery two years ago
during which Swiss researchers implanted devices
into his skull.
When he thinks about moving his legs, they send a signal
to a computer which sends impulses to an implant
in his spinal cord, prompting the legs to move.
- We are recording electrical signal generated by the brain.
So we need to decode these signal
and for this we use artificial intelligence.
- This is where I could see artificial intelligence
making the biggest impact on patient's lives.
If you can decode the brain signals to impact the muscle,
to improve sensation for those who have had TBIs
or traumatic brain injuries or strokes,
you can have a significant, significant improvement
of quality of life.
- [Reporter 4] The research builds on previous work
that showed stimulating the lower spine
with electrical impulses can help some
of those who are paralyzed to walk or even cycle again.
- In a lot of that research, what we've seen is
by literally shooting this electrical impulse,
you start using the pathways,
and by starting that pathway up
you could solidify that pathway over time
by getting natural impulses from the human body.
- [Reporter 4] Using his mind, Oscam can walk
on gravel and climb stairs.
He's even regained some ability to move his legs
without the device being on.
- Yeah, nerves are able to regrow
if you're able to fire them.
Like firing nerves helps them work better.
That's actually a reason why
the more you practice something,
the more likely it is to solidify, improve,
you get fine motor control to a higher degree.
Meet Li Hua, the folded man who spent 28 years
of his life bent over.
That's an extreme angle of what looks like his lumbar spine.
He was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis when he was 18,
which one of our good friends
from the Try Guys, Zach Cornfeld,
has also been diagnosed with
and has talked about openly on his YouTube video
that we actually discussed here as well.
This is an autoimmune condition creating stiffness
starting usually in the low back.
Yeah, at its worst form it causes the bones to full on fuse.
Obviously not every case is this extreme
and there are medications that can alter the course
or at least alter the symptomatology of the condition.
(soft music)
Yeah, a lot of the medications,
they usually end M-A-B, mabs.
Those are quite expensive medications.
And this is something I've been critical about pharma on,
that a lot of those medications are targeted
at people who need them in order to function
but will live long lives
so that they're forced to pay these huge sums
of money for these medications that have patents on them.
So these pharma companies become rich
and yes we want them to create
and do research and innovate and all these things,
but not at the cost of causing patients to go bankrupt
or not be able to afford the medications.
And I'm not saying make them completely free
or something like that.
Maybe there's programs that we can instill,
put caps on how long the patents can hold,
limits to how much what was spent
versus what is gonna be returned.
'Cause right now it's out of control.
Three parts of Li's body were connected.
So I wonder if when they say connected,
do they mean fistula was formed?
Now fistula is an abnormal connection
between two parts of the body.
A vesiculo colonic fistula is one
that connects the bladder to the colon.
- (foreign language spoken)
- It could put pressure on his heart, lungs,
causing organ dysfunction.
In fact, you know, we're looking
at an advanced case of AS here.
But in instances of even severe scoliosis,
we worry about cardiopulmonary dysfunction.
Like certain Cobb angles, which is the angle
of the measurement when we check for scoliosis,
can get so extreme that it actually impacts
a person's ability to take a deep breath.
- (foreign language spoken)
- I mean forget that he could put his life in danger.
This is not a quality of life.
There has to be some kind of surgical solution
that could be implemented here.
A femeral osteotomy, they're gonna literally
recreate his thigh bones by breaking them.
His second operation's gonna be a cervical osteotomy
which they're gonna do the same
but with his cervical spine now
which is the most upper portion of the spine.
So we have the cervical spine,
we have the thoracic spine, lumbar and then sacrum.
- (foreign language spoken)
- There is a high risk of any time
you're performing spinal surgery.
'Cause remember, the spinal cord is inside the vertebra.
There's nerves that come off the spinal cord
that go in between them through the holes and separations
between the vertebrae.
Now anytime you're cutting there
and making adjustments and creating inflammation,
you could pressure on a nerve
and really cause a lot of disability.
- (foreign language spoken)
- So osteoporosis means weakening of the bones.
This is usually age related.
In some cases it could be metabolically related
because of inability to get certain nutrients
from foods or malabsorption syndromes.
Even something as simple as a cough or a sneeze
can break a bone and if you break a vertebrae
by doing that, oh boy is that painful.
Li developed a fever after the third operation.
A fever post-op is not unusual.
We have certain things that we try
and rule out as the cause for fevers.
Obviously infection is the first thing that comes to mind
but we have the five w's of post-op fevers
that you can see here.
- (foreign language spoken)
- It wouldn't be a disaster.
I know he's saying that if he went into sepsis,
it would be a disaster
where like he could develop septic shock
and his blood pressure would fall, then he needs ICU care.
But getting an infection means he needs antibiotics
and he could come out of that.
- (foreign language spoken)
- Wow.
- (foreign language spoken)
- Savage, he's already roasting his poor mom.
- (foreign language spoken)
- See, this is a perfect example of post-traumatic growth.
Someone who's gone through such a difficult trauma,
difficult life, and the first thing he wants to do
is help relieve his mom of the burden of taking care of him.
You know, so often we see ourselves,
myself included, take advantage, be not as grateful
for our current successes and skills and health, all that.
Jen was born without a uterus,
a rare condition known as MRKH.
- So we really saw an opportunity to develop a
both clinical uterus transplant program
and a robust research experience for uterus transplant.
- I actually have heard of this.
When this program was looking to transplant a uterus,
what was unique about it is that they were not only doing it
on live transplants, like from one living person to another
but also deceased patients, like from one deceased patient
to a living patient, obviously.
We also have to remember that there's individuals
who were born without a uterus.
There's individuals who have a malfunctioning uterus.
They could benefit a lot from a procedure like this.
- [Doctor] We monitor them until 37 weeks.
These women cannot deliver babies vaginally
so they have to have C-sections.
- I wonder if that has something to do
with the musculature surrounding the transplant
or maybe even the nerve control.
- Up to two live born children
are provided for in our trial,
and then at the end we remove the uterus
and they stop the immunosuppressive regimen.
- I guess that makes sense
'cause you no longer have the need.
If you have the two children, you move on
and you don't have to take the immunosuppressive medication
which is lifelong if you get another organ
like let's say kidney, liver, heart, et cetera.
- [Doctor] In the end she developed preeclampsia
that could not be managed further
and the decision was made for her health
and for the health of the baby
to deliver her prior to 37 weeks.
- That means that there was some kind
of blood pressure issue.
Perhaps a proteinuria issue because this does happen
in pregnancy and delivering is essentially the treatment.
The baby can survive earlier than 37 weeks.
If it's really early, there's medications given
to speed up the maturation of the lungs, like steroids.
But this is all part of the process
and the managing of an early birth.
- Every time she came through-
Okay, here's your spoon.
- Thank you. - You're welcome.
- I'm just very thankful to be alive.
- We're talking about someone who's had the most
extensive trauma imaginable,
and we have to go very far beyond what we can do
with conventional techniques or prosthetics
and only a face transplant can do that.
- Only dozens of these I think
that have been done worldwide.
This is so complicated.
It's very difficult, very dangerous.
So many issues, so many things can go wrong.
- If Adrea was willing to donate her organs, you know,
why would she need a face?
This is the right thing to do so someone else
can have maybe a a better life.
- Well, who is this lovely person?
- (indistinct)
- Hi. - Hi.
- I'm Sandra.
- I'm Katie.
- How are you?
It's so good to meet you.
- (indistinct)
- You look beautiful.
- She's biased though,
'cause she looks like her family member.
Yeah, I mean, it's not just traumatic individuals
who go through this, but also people who are born
with congenital deformities could benefit
from this type of research.
And I have given money in the past to create a better way
to address deformities of the ear and nose
through surgical procedures by creation of a medical device
that acts almost like a cookie cutter.
Partnered up with Dr. Angelo Leto Barone,
they were actually able to make it a reality
and we have a whole video about it.
Those who weigh over 600 pounds
have an extreme risk to their lives,
and we actually watched a few shows related to that.
Click here to check that out. My 600 pound life.
As always, stay happy and healthy.
(energetic tech music)