{"id":1805,"date":"2012-03-18T03:40:40","date_gmt":"2012-03-17T16:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/inthenews\/?p=1805"},"modified":"2015-04-29T13:52:21","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T03:52:21","slug":"mark-spira","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/mark-spira\/","title":{"rendered":"Little Mark is ready to grab life with both hands"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1842\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1842\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/2012\/03\/18\/mark-spira\/563200-mark-spira-7\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1842\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-1842\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/files\/2012\/03\/563200-mark-spira4-160x160.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"160\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1842\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">RCH patient Mark Spira. Photo courtesy of the Herald Sun.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>For the first time two-year-old Mark Spira will be able to use his right hand to pick up and play with his favourite toys.<\/p>\n<p>As Mark developed in the womb, strands from the uterus lining were choking his tiny hand like a rubber band, causing his foetal fingers to be amputated above the first knuckle and fuse together as one.<\/p>\n<p>Intricate eight-hour microsurgery at the Royal Children&#8217;s Hospital involved reattaching minuscule veins, arteries, bones and ligaments &#8211; some barely a millimetre thick &#8211; to the new transplant site.<\/p>\n<p>Paediatric hand surgeon David McCombe said the second toe from each foot was used so as not to affect balance, and they would grow normally once transplanted.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a big deal for a family to accept the concept,&#8221; Mr McCombe said.<\/p>\n<p>Mark&#8217;s father Enver said, &#8220;You can&#8217;t put a price tag on what they&#8217;ve done. The doctors, surgeons, nurses are so gifted and we are so grateful&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Mark Spira\" href=\"http:\/\/www.heraldsun.com.au\/news\/more-news\/two-year-old-boy-digitally-enhanced-thanks-to-surgeons\/story-fn7x8me2-1226302566708\">Click here<\/a> to read the full story on the Herald Sun website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time two-year-old Mark Spira will be able to use his right hand to pick up and play with his favourite toys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7198,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-good-friday-appeal","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1805"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1844,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805\/revisions\/1844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}