Doctor Reacts To Extreme Medical Conditions

The family with six fingers looks so wholesome. And they make the most out of their condition and see it as a positive thing.

Honestly hearing dr mike say “so he does have a normal life, maybe a unique life, but a normal life” really hit hard tbh. As someone with an invisible disability I often get stuck in thought cycles were I feel like I can never have a normal life. Hearing him acknowledge that you can have a normal life even if it’s different from other’s lives is so reassuring

Honestly the 6 finger thing seems quite advantageous especially in todays world of keyboards, phones, controllers etc. plus the fact that it’s a dominant trait makes me think that it may become more and more common

i find it fascinating that their 6th finger is also somewhat opposable - it can fold inward toward the palm just like the thumb does (though with a much lower range of motion than the thumb). that certainly would make it much easier to grip objects. definitely seems like an advantageous mutation.

A dear friend of mine had conjoined twins. Both twins shared most organs. The doctors said we could separate them but only one can live or they can stay together but have a hard life or no life at all. The idea of picking only one to live was heart breaking. They thought about it for a long time. Sadly, before they could make a decision, both babies died. She wonders what life would have been like with both of them or even one of them if they had decided in time but ultimately she is happy in the idea that they came together and left together and she didn’t choose one over the other. She is so brave and I don’t know what I would have done if it were me. Congrats to the family in this video that has a beautiful son!

I actually cried for the twin that lost his life. I can't stop thinking about how scared he must have been to be seperated and then he didn't make it. Rip little man.

I was born with a ectopic pancreas inside my stomach that they couldn’t figure out exactly what it was until I was five. At the time, there had only been 5 other reported cases. It prevented me from digesting any food without immediately throwing it up after. Luckily they were able to do a new experimental surgery and I just have a giant scar on my abdomen now. I’ve still dealt with gut issues since then but they didn’t think I was going to make it to adulthood so lol

The bit about extremity crush injuries basically ending in amputation I’ve got a great example, I had probably the most minor crush injury ever, I dropped a deep freezer as I was bringing it in the front door, and it pinched the tip of the middle finger on my left hand right at the tip dead smack in the center of the nail bed. Somehow didn’t rip the nail off just turned everything under it to ground beef and almost took the whole tip of the finger off and left the nail behind without so much as a scratch 😂 the first thing the er folks told me is there was a good chance that half the first digit of that finger was probably going away and I wouldn’t have the nail anymore but they decided to try and fix it so they removed the nail and stitched up the nail bed and then actually stuck the detached nail back up under the cuticle and secured it with a stitch to promote good nail growth. These days the nail is a bit crooked and it has a gnarly scar but it’s got all feeling and circulation so I’m happy with it. It’s my special finger 😂

As a occupational therapist myself, I appreciate you bringing light to our profession. At times we are unsung heroes in the hospital and doctors. At time doctors just say patient seen working with PT.

I had a bug in my ear. It's one of the most traumatic things that's ever happened to me and 20 years later I'm still absolutely terrified of most bugs. I can't imagine it happening over 1000 times. That poor girl. My heart absolutely breaks for her.

My mother has been a nurse for 30ish years. I remember when she mentioned caring for someone who had a similar surgery as the hand guy. I remember thinking it was totally wild then. It’s definitely interesting to see these different kinds of approaches.

the family with polydactyly is really cool, polydactyly is a dominant gene (it was on the high school biology curriculum in the UK) so it totally makes sense. Awesome that it's something they can celebrate

The case you were talking about with the Siamese pair were brothers Eng and Cheng Bunker who were born conjoined at the sternum via a flexible band of tissue. At the time (early 1800’s) they were an extremely huge medical oddity and curiosity as they obviously survived their birth and infancy. As they grew older and news of their story spread, they were immigrated to the US and examined by numerous doctors from all over the world. As young adults they did the only job that physically unique individuals such as themselves could do at the time, and joined a traveling circus freak show. They actually earned a small fortune being billed as “The Amazing Siamese Twins”. Later, they retired from the circus and both got married to American women. To compensate for their unusual situation, they settled down on a pair of neighboring farms in the foothills of North Carolina, each owning one. They divided their time between the two farms so each could have time with their respective wives and kids. Sadly, as they grew older, they became increasingly frustrated at their conjoined lives. Specifically, Eng was frustrated with Chang and his health deteriorating and him drinking heavily. This led them to engange in huge physical fights with each other. Doctors at the time speculated they could probably be separated, but as it was never done before, and they had no way of knowing the level of organs and tissue shared between the two, they refused to operate. Eventually at the age of 62, after already suffering a stroke previously, Cheng died of a cerebral blood clot. Upon the death of his brother, Eng said he was going to die shortly after. Which he did from bleeding out into his dead brother. His life could have been saved, some speculate, had they known to tie a string at the point of connection between the two to prevent Eng’s blood from flowing into Cheng’s lifeless corpse. Upon their deaths, their bodies were sent to be autopsied, mostly out of sheer curiosity of their connection. It was determined that their connection was mostly cartilage and connective tissues with only a shared liver between them. Thus, they probably could of been successfully separated. Their preserved liver as well as a death cast of their conjoined torsos can be seen on display at the Mutter Museum to this day.

12:59 "So he does have a normal live, maybe a unique life, but a normal one." As someone who has been an amputee since age 6, this sentence made me drop a tear :)

Love how real and positive you are, no cheesy sensationalism, just down to earth logic and positivity

When my dad was 16, he worked in a papermill. This would have been 72 years ago. Machines often had no guards then, and the back of his hand was sliced off. He had his hand stiched inside a flap on his abdomen and a plaster cast on the whole arm to keep it immobile. My dad was a musician. He won the British championships when he was 13, this after a year in hospital from peritonitis that almost killed him. His hand was important to him. He played the French horn and later joined the army and went into the band. The back of his hand had a hairy square, the skin of the abdomen obviously was the same, and when playing in the band, he wore white gloves. 20 years after he had this skin graft, a wire like thread started growing out of the middle of the hairy patch on the hand. It turns out it was a stitch that hadn't been taken out, but it left a hole in the hand that was quite noticeable. There's no doubt that if this hadn't worked out, he would have lost his hand, his fingers were a little stiff but with time they became less so, and not been able to continue his musical career as he signed on to an orchastra when he left the army.

I had a polydactyl cat. They're actually sometimes called Hemingway cats because the famed author had one who...well, wasn't spayed. Since it's a dominant trait in cats there's a colony with lots of polydactyls on his former estate to this day. I can say from experience that for felines it grants an advantage in quickly nabbing food off of dinner plates.

I don't know much about this stuff to be honest, but here we go. When I was 8, it was discovered I was born with an Enteric Duplication Cyst, or an EDC. It went completely undiscovered throughout many years of stomach pain and constant illness growing up, which didn't let me get a great education as I wasn't in school often but teachers would just assume I was trying to get out of school (which to be fair, a small part of me was cause I hated it). My colon went into volvulus which is what brought me to the hospital where it was finally noticed. I was in hospital for about a month or two, but came out and began physical and occupational therapy to recover the damage to my lower body that the surgeries caused. After being bed-bound for that time I'd lost the ability to walk and had pieces of wire into my stomach to make sure the scars wouldn't open or leak liquid. Of course, I can walk now all well and I've become very physically active. However, this lead to issues with my acid reflux and now I live with GERD & LPR, as well as Rhinitis cause apparently my script writers want me to be a villain. I basically live with an acidy cold nowadays, but I'm just glad to live at all. :')

7:30 The stomach pocket guy is actually from Brazil, where I come from. This type of injury can be common because of the economic situation, that forces the vast majority of workers to work at factories with dangerous machines. But, this type of surgery is in fact very rare...

I like the no-nonsense factual explanations. What's more, I love the end where you straight up called the dude out, "So he DOES have a normal life. A unique life..." No sugar coating, just honest. Nice work! You've got my sub!