And Now

And what this means is I can now play music with an interface made up of pixel art old enough to rent a car

Tracheal transplants using donor tissue were not possible in 1986. They didn't become possible until January 13, 2021.

Circumferential Tracheal Replacement (the procedure they performed) was highly experimental and had first been performed earlier that year.

The first mention of it in medical literature according to the NIH was in 1987 by F. Eckersberger, the year after my procedure.

I was the first person under 18 to undergo the procedure.

Tracheal Replacement, like tracheal transplantation, is a "last-resort" type of procedure. It is only performed when every other option has been exhausted or eliminated.

Candidates for this procedure are people with damage to 50% or more of their airway for adults, and 30% for children. My airway was damaged nearly 90%.

My surgeon, Dr. Frederick Stucker (retired), was one of only three surgeons on the planet capable of performing the procedure at that time.

Circumferential Tracheal Replacement is one of the rarest medical procedures in the history of medicine. In the forty years since it's invention, there have been less than 300 reported cases worldwide.

To this day, there are only a very small number of medical centers that perform the procedure, less than 50 worldwide.