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Level 3 – Intermediate
Not his own
A fifty-year-old New Zealander, Clint Hallam had the world’s first hand transplant operation in 1998. An international team of surgeons carried out the operation which technically was a remarkable success. Mr Hallam had feeling in the hand and was able to move it quite efficiently. He regularly had to take drugs to prevent his body rejecting the hand.
However, Mr Hallam never felt comfortable with his new hand and he came to dislike it so much that he hid it most of the time. He never considered it as his own and the fact that it looked different made things worse. His new hand was not the same colour as his own and it was longer and wider.
Two years later, he asked doctors to amputate it but they refused. They finally performed the operation in January at a hospital in London. Mr Hallam had become ill and his life was in danger. Doctors believe that he had stopped taking the anti-rejection drugs and his body was reacting against the hand. But Mr Hallam said that ‘enough was enough’ and neither his body nor his mind wanted to go on living with the hand.
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Answer the questions below to check how well you understand the text.
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C2 Mastery
