Where Will Angelina Jolie’s High Profile Fallopian Tubes End Up?
ADAM MICHAEL LUEBKE
Organs and limbs are cut loose from people every day, but where do they end up?
Where, especially, does a set of high-profile ovaries and Fallopian tubes go after they’ve been removed from a celebrity?
Medical doctors and cancer experts are lauding Angelina Jolie’s decision to remove her reproductive organs. Dr Marleen Meyers said, “It was incredibly courageous” and Dr Robert DeBernardo took his hat off to the famous actress and United Nations ambassador.
Jolie’s surgery was a preemptive strike against her high risk of future cancer of her breasts and ovaries. Jolie carries a mutation in the BRCA1 gene, which increases her risk.
Her double mastectomy in 2013 raised awareness and demand worldwide for genetic testing.
News outlets offered plentiful coverage of Jolie’s operation, but the analysis was one-dimensional. No discussions were offered about what will happen to the removed organs. Somebody must be wondering.
There’s a decent chance more than a few freaks are lurking around the back alleys of the prestigious clinics and hospitals hoping for a lucky find.
They might be out of luck, though. Not all organs get tossed out in the trash. The patient can request her body part from the clinic or hospital, and they must return it promptly. Various reasons have been cited why a person would want to reclaim his lung, bladder, or forearm.
Some folks like to bury it in their backyard. Although that’s rare, it exists. It’s for personal closure. You can’t keep your arm the way it was, but at least you know where it’s at, three feet below ground, under the old maple tree.
It makes for neighborly conversation during a backyard barbecue. Remember that appendix problem I had, Jim? Well, see that slight rise in the grass over there?
Or people have been known to bury their dissociated part in a nearby public cemetery. You’ll find strange tombstones that reveal the disturbing trend of individual organ-burial.
“Here lies Gary’s gallbladder. Spiteful to the end.” But where is Gary? your children might ask. Tell them to never mind. It’s not a lesson for kids.
Like the backyard burial crowd, some folks discard their stuff in the garden. Sympathetic local officials usually look the other way when there is trauma involved.
The patient has suffered enough to have an amputated limb, so forget about the city codes preventing the pollution of the water table.
Let the guy dump his limb in a hole in the garden. A sense of continuity prevails. Of dust, to dust. And if it lends nutrients to the soil, all the better.
That treatment is not common in the 21st century.
“Most people don’t even think to ask for their precious organs back from the hospital once they’ve been removed,” said the exiled cultural philosopher Hubert Humdinger, who also did a stint in medical school many decades ago.
“There’s been significant emotional detachment in our digital age to not only other people, but also to our own limbs, digits, organs, and tissues.”
Even fetuses go unclaimed.
In that case, the hospital buries them, unless they are less than a pound, give or take a few ounces. Then they get incinerated.
One notorious exception to this rule is the fetus in the jar stored above the mantel place of the Bush Sr household.
The tell-all Decision Points by Bush Jr talked of his mother’s miscarriage, and the way she stored it in a jar and carried it around in the car wherever the family traveled.
A claim which Barbara decidedly refused by saying, “I didn’t put the fetus in the jar, the housekeeper did!”
But let’s please forget about the Bush family. Haven’t we had enough of them already? Aren’t we wary with the thought we might get four more years if Jeb Bush and his new, healthy campaign lifestyle routine proves fruitful?
The big question tonight is where Jolie’s equipment will end up.
No doubt there will be scuffles over it. Maybe even by the doctors themselves. There is a lot of money available for celebrity body parts if you know where to look.
A thriving black market of creams and ointments, elixirs and power juices made specifically from nutrient-rich human tissue exists and is only becoming more popular as people seek out quality products.
Most of the high quality material ends up in the so-called “Vitamin B booster shots” for senators, presidents, and royal families, although it is usually “living material” derived from the state-run foster care programs.
Before 1970, these products used to be sold in the normal markets, but they weren’t advertised as such.
Products like cosmetic creams that used anmiotic membranes and placentas to give it a light and fluffy texture, not to mention unparalleled moisturizing ability.
You can’t find these golden age products any longer unless you know the right people, and you have a lot of cash to blow. It’s no wonder that today we feel our health and beauty products and nearly everything else is more artificial and less effective. They’re missing essential ingredients.
Imagine the light bulb moment for the Jolie surgeon as he realizes what he’s holding in his hands. These are no generic reproductive organs. They have brand name value.
Even if Jolie asks, or demands, her body parts back in a hermetically sealed container, how will she know they are hers?
“You just know,” Humdinger says when I ask him about the relationship between a person and her organs.
“You just know it. Simple as that. Your tissues know it, and they will send the proper signals to your brain. In Angelina Jolie’s case, if she were to come in contact with her extracted ovaries and Fallopian tubes, intuitively her body would scream, ‘These organs are family.’
“If, for example,” I were to come in contact with Jolie’s ovaries, I can indubitably say my tissues would recoil.”
It’s not unlikely that there are untruthful surgeons in Los Angeles who would try to take advantage of such a situation by swapping a lesser set of oviducts for a renowned pair and then selling them off to some hatchet man in Crimea. We’re all trying to maintain the California lifestyle. Opportunities don’t show up every day.
The most likely outcome for Angelina Jolie’s body parts is that they will be incinerated at 1100 degrees Celsius. The charred material leftover will be brushed into an airtight container and transported to a disaffected mine shaft to be dumped properly.
But beware, the hunt is on. I suggest all celebrities be careful with their organs. Millions are watching your faces on the TV and licking their lips. You’re wanted by the general public. All of you. Every ounce, every morsel, every cell.
[Jolie header photo from Foreign and Commonwealth office; Angelina Jolie and Condoleeza Rice photo from Michael Gross; Jolie’s puckered lips photo from EnemyOfTheState; burning waste photo from Dr. Lyle Conrad, CDC; medical waste photo from Stephen Witherden]
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