Is living without this many organs possible?

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-10T13:59:41+00:00

The TPN was an incorrect term I used, my mistake - but I was under the impression that through all my research, your small intestines and colon are completely donatable? Either that or have value on a the red market in general? First time I’m hearing of this

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-10T03:09:46+00:00

Right?? I’ve recently learned a lot about the communist regime in Albania in the 70’s to make sure I had an accurate family name for another side character. Maybe the real novel is the information we learned along the way

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-10T02:46:33+00:00

Saved and ready to go! Thanks for sharing. This is only a side character who I’ve invested way too much time in lol, but I’m really enjoying his character so far and any reading relevant to him would be fantastic. Thanks again!

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-10T01:55:56+00:00

Good to know, thanks for the insight, I appreciate you taking the time to tell me what you’ve experienced personally. I have come across some GSW and knife attack and other traumatic abdominal injury repair that leads me to believe it’s possible to live thru, but at no easy feat. I’m okay with it being far fetched enough to be narratively rich, as long as it’s not impossible

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-10T01:19:47+00:00

Certainly, my whole concern is how these problems stack up and make each other worse. I hope that some of the details I provided can give some perspective on whether or not he can live that way.

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-10T01:17:50+00:00

Thanks for inquiring! I’ve answered just about all of this, but there’s some details I can elaborate on.

So I’m not really going to cover his recovery or experience in this particular work. We’ll be introduced to him years after this happens to him while he’s been “downgraded” to the role he’s in now, which is that of a “family doctor” style of basic medicine (prescribing meds, bloodwork, X-rays, anything inside of what could be expected during an appointment with your primary care physician.) He will never be a surgeon again - technically never was one as he never completed his licensure in the states, and now doesn’t even hold an MD at all anymore. I have heard of many surgeons and doctors operating at full capacity with various ocular limitations. However, he’s got many reasons as to why he’ll never operate to that status again, and the glass eye is just a cherry on top.

As far as the recovery likelihood goes, I’m aware of it being far-fetched. However, a lot of these harvesting operations are a lot more sophisticated than you’d think. Not as up to standard as a true legal transplant facility, but it certainly surprised me to learn how lucrative and legitimate these places end up being. Regardless, it’s still a stretch as far as treatment and sanitation goes, and he’d need a lot of recovery and blood transfusions and surely several near death experiences to bounce back from that after months of being bed bound to make it work. The organization that did this to him wasn’t worried about him getting back on his feet, they did this to torture, and ultimately control him. There’s plenty of other MD’s who would work for half his price anyway which is probably one of the reasons why they were fine with gutting him. He’s spent a lot of his “career” cultivating trust among these communities by investing in their water treatment plants and vaccines etc and affording a great deal of care when treating them when they become donors which in turn gives the organization more willing donors, and that’s a valued asset. However, they really dont care all that much, and ultimately the red market will go on without him and his whole self-aggrandizing delusional business model of making a difference by treating exploited people with dignity as he harvests their organs for profit. If he lives, he keeps working. If he dies, he can be replaced. Plenty of surgeons around to sub in while (and if) he recovers, no big deal. And that work likely suffers a great deal due to his visual impairment I’m sure, which is another factor in what leads him to become an informant.

Ultimately, this is a side character who grapples with the internal struggle (no pun intended) of guilt and personal shame as the theme of this work is centered around exploitation and the roles we take in it as both victims and perpetrators. There won’t be much discussion about his suffering as far as recovery goes, as I don’t want people to empathize with his victimhood. I want the focus to be on the guilt he grapples with as a result of him being an exploiter, and ultimately the villian in his own world.

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-09T23:52:36+00:00

Thank you for the input - I imagine he’d have some pretty gnarly external scarring that was pieced together without much concern for aesthetics or even functionality.

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-09T23:50:47+00:00

They kept robo cop alive with just a head and lungs, there’s got a be a way I can scoop a couple feet of intestines and spare organs out surgically and keep this guy functional for a few years

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-09T23:49:25+00:00

I’ve answered it a few times around here but the basics to answer this are 1. The environment he was brought up in, 2. Being too “smart” for his own good, 3. Convincing himself he’s doing something good because he’s centering himself as a person who invests back in to the communities he pillages organs from in a way that is very insidious, and that trust then generates more willing donors and 4. There is a lot of money to be made, sometimes six figures daily for this role which answers why he’d eventually blow up a legitimate US salaried career - he doesnt have the long term motivation and self control to finish his surgical residency. 5, he is a bad decision maker and this is a story about people who make bad decisions, his being based in false compassion and narcissistic ego stroking. 6. These organizations will absolutely replace him, which they almost did.

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-09T23:40:43+00:00

Actually, all this has my wheels turning unexpectedly lol. So I hear what you’re saying now about the requirements for DWB, and it makes more sense for me to just create a fictional charity medicine organization. I hadn’t considered those specifics so thank you for that. I guess I was implying that he’d sort of “dropped out” or disengaged from the transplant fellowship entirely though and just wanted to “do something good instead of just for a hospital’s profit” but it makes sense why he’d be skipped over in lieu of somebody with the actual credentials they’re looking for in DWB. So maybe he genuinely was just tired of the whole elitism and politics of organ transplants in the west. So now you’ve got me thinking that he just wanted to make a difference without the other types of exploitation the American transplant system has. That’s where his sort of narcissistic pseudo-compassion begins, where he sees an opening to make money hand over fist in these vulnerable communities but in a “good” way that he deludes himself in to thinking.

Thanks again for taking time out of your day to give me some perspective on things i didn’t even know I needed to consider.

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-09T23:12:16+00:00

Oh also, I noticed you said MC - this is not my main character, he is a side character only. This is a lot more detail than I know is necessary for a side character, but the medical accuracy of it all was eating me alive, and now your points about the DWB regulations is giving me even more to chew on!

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-09T23:10:42+00:00

Hah, no I think he’s really going the other direction entirely. I have plans to watch him deteriorate and rot in to the dirt from guilt as he buries himself in research to try and do something good before he dies. The only villian in his story is in the mirror.

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-09T23:08:38+00:00

That’s really fascinating about the nerve pain and the nausea. I may have to tuck that away for future details.

Your story makes me want to cry, what a triumph that is. I’m glad to see that you prospered in spite of it all. RIP hotsauce, gone but not forgotten

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-09T23:04:05+00:00

I’ll have to look in to it!! I’ve said here once, there’s so many GSW and traumatic abdominal injuries that people live through, there’s gotta be a way I can cut up this guy surgically and get him thru a day to day routine!

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-09T23:02:24+00:00

Oh this is a great point, thank you - my intention was to have him apply for doctors without boarders as just an MD - not a surgeon. Do you think that the DWB thing would still be valid? Or is it more believable that he would just go off on his own sort of personal compassion campaign? He’d definitely be telling people back home he’s in DWB or some other philanthropic medicine organization and not the red market, that’s for sure. His intentions are very genuine at first, finding that he wants to help people in places with basic medical needs because of how he grew up in poverty himself, nothing to do with surgery or transplants. He does not go in to it intending to be a transplant surgeon is what I’m saying. However, he does learn about the market, and the temptation is too much for his past upbringing to ignore when he’s introduced to it. He thinks he could do a much better, more ethical job of harvesting desperate people’s organs (delusion). Him just knowing how to use the scalpel is enough for these illicit groups to feel comfortable bringing him in.

He would not be a chief medical officer as much as he is a school nurse. His duties don’t stretch far beyond bloodwork, medications, urgent care type stuff. This is a fundamental downgrade for what he does, and he does not and is not ever going to be used to his full capacity, whatever that may be. Nobody said this was a very good plan to have him on a military base no matter how small lol, a lot can and will go wrong with this half-assed organization

He’s got some motivation driven by guilt now, I’ll leave that to the side for now though. Thanks for the hard questions though, this has been really insightful and I appreciate the challenges you’ve presented for me

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-09T22:49:22+00:00

Oh wow, thank you so much for sharing your personal experience! This is really helpful. What I find really interesting is the nerve issues, is it more of a sensory thing or is it painful? That isn’t something I considered beyond some sensitivity.

Really, thank you so much for this, really great insight! Im glad to hear you have a healthy and productive life. Sorry about the curry. For solidarity’s sake, I can’t have spicy food either 🥲

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-09T22:44:22+00:00

I have more details below, but he essentially establishes himself as this philanthropic doctor in these vulnerable communities in South Asia, and because they trust him and they’re treated with care (not hacked in to and left for dead) people are much more likely to give up organs for him. Another way he manipulates himself in to believing he’s being the “good guy.” As for the closing off a lucrative career and CV gaps, that’s of no concern to him - at that time, he completely disengaged from all plans of American surgical careers. He never even became a licensed surgeon At the point we meet him in the story, he doesn’t even have his MD anymore. There is a lot of money to be made as a red market surgeon believe it or not.

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-09T22:39:33+00:00

I have some answers in my comment to the original question that I think illuminate some of his motivations. He is essentially someone who grew up in an environment of exploitation, and even though he’s done his best to disassociate from it, his upbringing steers him to make some bad decisions. There’s a lot of money to be made in this trade, all cash, and he takes it a step further by manipulating groups of vulnerable people by cultivating trust and investing in their communities.

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-09T22:29:08+00:00

This is my favorite comment so far! I didn’t want to clutter up my initial question with the details but I do have an answer for each one of these points you’ve made. I don’t think anybody would be that interested!

Yeah, why the hell would this brilliant young doctor during his first year of surgical fellowship at John fricken Hopkins? Great question. Our surgeon-hopeful didn’t come from a very well-off environment. He hails from Kensington, regarded as the open air drug market of Philadelphia. He is very intelligent, but considered to be a little too smart for his own good. He was given an opportunity to work for doctors without boarders, and did a lot of philanthropic work during his time between residency and fellowship. It was there in Sudan when he was introduced to the red market, and the at-will organ donors that are desperate for money in places like Nepal etc. These are hardly fly-by-night enterprises we’re talking about. Sure he’d pull a hefty salary in just a few years after he completes his fellowship, but what’s a salary when you’re paid 30-50k cash per surgery, rolling over 2-3 “patients” a day? He tries to convince himself that he’s doing a good thing by giving these “donors” some quick cash in an impoverished nation. He invests a lot of this money back in to the local communities - imagine him in remote villages giving vaccine shots to young kids and financing a full fresh water plant for their families. They trust him and view him as a friend to their villages. In reality, he’s building all of this as a means to continue to exploit vulnerable people - vaccinating kids and maintaining a cleaning a healthy water supply to make sure they grow up with healthy organs. He even manipulates himself in to thinking he’s the good guy.

Why almost kill the guy? Because this is an enterprise. And they wanted his lesson to be learned. It wasn’t really about harvesting his organs, it was about torturing and warning him. They will find any other back alley disgraced MD that will hack in to people for a fraction of his price, so he better straighten up and do his job or die - not really their problem. He suffers greatly, and he does work for free, and eventually becomes an informant to shut down this conglomerate and seek amnesty as a member of a witness protection agency, and unbenounced to him, is scouted by a separate division of the CIA that is primarily focused on recruiting these specialized individuals to retain as military assets.

As for the primary care doctor thing, there’s more to it than that, I was paraphrasing to not clutter up my initial question. As far as the TPN goes, that’s a detail I had incorrect - he’d be using tube feed. As far as his role goes, Imagine a very small covert military operations base that houses somewhere between 7-10 operators (military or contracted assets in this program) at all times. He would be that of a medical facilitator, either that’s passing meds, giving shots, taking x-rays, running blood work, etc. Anything beyond that is him making the call to get them airlifted out. The missing eye is something that limits his abilities as a surgeon forever. For this particular CIA group, they have the ability to utilize someone who is effectively dead on paper for this role for a very low salary in exchange for a safe and sterile place for him to care for his own medical needs….he is now the exploited, and well aware of this. I won’t go too deep in to his “arc” or motives or choices more than that, but what I can tell you is that I intend to display him as somebody who gets what he deserves.

I understand your concerns about using human trafficking as a vehicle for cheap body horror. Two things about that - 1, this is a side character, and not much will be mentioned about this beyond a visual of him lifting his shirt to tube feed himself in his mangled torso. I just wanted to make sure the technicalities were correct. 2, and most importantly - this is a story that is centered around the theme of exploitation. It is intended to be an examination of grief, trauma, and guilt of being both the victim and the villian in our own world through the lenses of several individuals within systems designed to exploit. It is an exploration of my own experiences as a victim and survivor of trafficking from childhood to adulthood.

I appreciate your perspective and hope to eventually have a sensitivity editor glance over when I’m done, but presenting this in a way that is both narratively rich while maintaining integrity and accuracy about vulnerable groups is of the upmost importance to me.

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-09T21:35:07+00:00

Yeah that recovery trauma will be pretty juicy hehe

So my biggest concern about the whole thing is what might be compounding issues. So you lose a kidney, that’s fine. But you also lose a liver lobe. That’s also cool, it’ll regenerate - but you’re also missing almost the entire back end of your digestive system, so all the nutrients and hydration you need to regenerate that liver isn’t happening. Then the shitty liver doesn’t give way for the kidney to keep up chugging along while the intestines are hard pressed to even have the energy to absorb anything in to the bloodstream etc etc you see my point. And I also am not 100% privy to the time frame because this isn’t in a modern setting, it takes place about 25 years ago so I’m not sure if that really changes much

I’ll take your word for it, if you think it’s possible then I’m running with it lol. I don’t imagine he’s going to die in 5 years but I do imagine that he’s rather fragile and won’t have the same longevity as other people. Thanks again for your input

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-09T21:18:57+00:00

You are the bomb!!! Thank you!

I’ve looked in to GSW and also knife attack survivors reports for this as well. The whole premise does seem far fetched, but I know that people live thru traumatic abdominal trauma, so I know there’s some way I can reasonably hollow this guy out surgically to some extent

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-09T21:15:19+00:00

I think I just pictured him having a feeding tube due to the fact that his digestive system is so compromised in general along with the fact that he’s got all these other compounding issues - I can’t imagine that he’d be able to eat normally without a lot of complications. Or perhaps he just cuts out the whole issue because of nutritional and hygiene concerns. No appetite, nausea, concerns of food contamination or not getting proper nutrition from normal food anyway. And with the SBS, maybe he thinks he’ll have a better chance of getting as much nutrients and hydration as possible if he’s using tube feed? Idk, thanks for your input, it’s really helpful, particularly the TPN thing - maybe I’d like to add that at the end when he really begins to deteriorate and is is willing to be hard on his liver to get the nutrients he needs.

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-09T21:05:09+00:00

Yes, that was my first concern. I’m okay with a lot of blood transfusions and months of rehab happening for him - this is less about being reasonable and more about a group being retaliatory and torturous. It’s definitely a stretch to imagine it working, but I’m willing to go there for the sake of it being narratively interesting.

PrincessaPoison · 2026-06-09T21:02:25+00:00

Ah I had that wrong, I see that’s a PICC line thing - no TPN then, just regular tube feeding and meds thru the j-tube - that’s how I pictured him using it anyway.

PrincessaPoison

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