Stand and de-liver

DID you know that, if you take away 80 per cent of your liver, it will have grown back to its normal volume within 12 months?

This is important if you want to donate half your liver to a loved one with a diseased organ, as Darren finds out in Extraordinary People.

Less of a freak show than usual, The Man Who Shared His Liver does much to take away the mystery of being a live liver donor.

It may also – and this may have motivated those taking part – do something to promote donors coming forward. For another statistic offered relates that, at the moment, 27 per cent of people die while on the list awaiting a suitable donor.

Darren’s mother, Christina, has cancer.

She’s been given 12 to 16 months to live with treatment. The alternative is a transplant – and for one of her four children to give half their liver to save her.

The operations on donor and recipient are carried out in adjacent theatres simultaneously.

Liver surgeon Professor Peter Lodge declares it “about the most major surgery you can consider to have”.

Widow Christina is unable to live a normal life with a primary tumour on her liver. All her four children offer to help, rather than see her die on the waiting list.

I’m not too sure about the narrator’s decision to make it sound like a game show.

As Christina’s children are told the pros and cons of the transplant, he asks: “Which one will it be?”

Two sons are ruled out because of their medical history. It comes down to Darren and his sister, Alison. The surgical team decide Darren is the most motivated. But, and here comes the game show-style narrator again, “there’s a two-in-three chance Darren won’t get through the next phase”.

But he does pass the physical and psychologist tests, despite being told his liver is a bit fatty and he’s overweight. Then there’s a matter of size – it might not be anatomically possible to split his liver in half.

Those who like Your Life In Their Hands-style operations will welcome the footage of the transplant.

Two other people in need of new livers are featured, too, to provide a rounded picture.

One takes a turn for the worse before a transplant can be carried out. Another is lucky that a suitable liver becomes available through the donor system.

THERE were several raised eyebrows when Kim returned to Waterloo Road from her philanthropic adventure in Africa clutching a baby, in the opening episode.

As the series has progressed, we’ve been left to wonder whether Grace is actually hers and, in tonight’s episode, we learn that Kim has taken the tiny tot against her father’s wishes, as a Home Office official pays a visit to the school.

Worse is yet to come for the head of pastoral care when the official reveals to a shocked Rachel and Eddie that Kim paid another woman to take Grace, and she is, biologically at least, not hers.

IF there’s one criticism that could be levelled at Embarrassing Bodies – that it’s on so soon after most of us have eaten our evening meal. True, you’d be hard pushed to find people keen to watch extreme cases of tooth decay and athlete’s foot on an empty stomach, let alone a full one, but this show’s aim is to educate, rather than disgust.

Doctors Christian Jessen and Pixie McKenna have seen all sorts of stomachchurning conditions throughout the series, and they observe even more extreme cases in tonight’s show. Among the patients is a woman in her 30s whose life and skin have been ruined by acne. Can the Embarrassing Bodies medical team restore her face and fortunes by using the latest technology?

Meanwhile, dentist Dr James has to remove the front teeth of a young Scotsman who’s been overdoing it on the fizzy drinks and neglecting his oral hygiene.