Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Speaking of Green Thumbs

Artyom Sidorkin is twenty-eight years old. He's from the Udmurtian Republic in Russia. As far as we know, he does not garden either for fun or profit which makes this story all the more remarkable.
The guy was growing a tree in his lung.
I once tried to grow a nectarine tree on my roof. I never thought of growing it in my lung. I might have gotten better fruit had I chosen some internal essential organ in which to begin my garden.
According to the Komsomolskaya Pravada newspaper, Artyom experienced severe chest pains. When he started coughing up blood, he sought medical attention.
I can't help but wonder if he would have gone to the doctor sooner had he started coughing up pine cones.
Anyway, X-Rays showed some sort of growth in his lung. Doctors pronounced the growth cancer.
"We were 100% sure," said surgeon Vladimir Kamashev.
"We did X-rays and found what looked exactly like a tumor. I had seen hundreds before, so we decided on surgery."
Before removing the lung, they decided to biopsy the growth just to make sure.
When the doctor made the incision the first thing he saw -- after the usual, you know, blood and stuff -- was a small fir tree.
Dr. Kamashev understandably thought he was hallucinating.
The two inch tall tree had been touching capillaries and causing severe pain.
Doctors called in a lumberjack who cut the tree down and removed it from Artyom's lung.
Three chipmunks and a crow remained behind to look for better digs.
Current belief is that the guy accidentally inhaled a seed which settled into tissue and started growing. Apparently no one currently suggests that he deliberately planted the tree.
Sidorkin later said that he was just glad it wasn't cancer.

3 comments:

Tom Walker said...

And on the other hand, he's lucky it wasn't a jumping cactus.

MaryWalkerBaron said...

Or fox tails. Those things are hard enough to get out of socks. I can't even imagine the misery of getting them out of a lung.

Marnie said...

Or artichokes - they are prickly pears aren't they? Good thing the doctors consulted with a lumberjack.