Woman Claims to Have Diana’s Kidney

A French woman, Francoise Gaellar, had a kidney transplant two days after Princess Diana died in a car crash. She believes that she received Diana's kidney. As a consequence, she now feels urges to speak in English:

"I found myself speaking English to my friends, something I don't normally do because I have no reason to," she says. "I cannot explain why I did this."
Is this evidence of a fanciful nature, or an indication she had indeed received an organ from an English-speaker? Improbable though it sounds, there are many documented accounts of organ recipients taking on characteristics of their donors.

The French authorities aren't allowed to say who people get their organs from. They also aren't about to reveal what happened to Diana's body after she died. But a Hospital spokesperson did say that: "Because of bioethical laws and other considerations, it would have been impossible for this type of transplant to have taken place in a French hospital involving a British citizen, particularly when that person was the Princess of Wales."

Death Health/Medicine

Posted on Wed May 25, 2005


Comments

Sounds convincing to me! This could be the lazy man's way to learn a foreign language.

I wonder that if this woman had got Einstein's kidney she would have been a lot smarter, too.
Posted by Lord Lucan  on  Thu May 26, 2005  at  05:32 AM
I dunno...TWO days after? Transplants are usually done w/i hours.
Posted by Maegan  on  Thu May 26, 2005  at  05:50 AM
A French woman receives a kidney transplant. THe kidney says 'Hi, I used to belong to a princess'. The spleen replies 'Mon dieu! Un rein qui parle!'
Posted by Paul in Prague  on  Thu May 26, 2005  at  06:07 AM
I pitty the poor person that gets any of Raoul's organs then. 😊
Posted by Charybdis  on  Thu May 26, 2005  at  07:37 AM
What would really be a kicker is if she couldn't speak English before the transplant. If she just has the "urge" to speak to her friends in English, I'd call shenanigans. I have the urge to invent the next million dollar invention all the time....I just can't seem to do it.
Posted by Silentz  on  Thu May 26, 2005  at  11:18 AM
This is totally conceivable. I once went across the border to Mexico to the dentist, and he put a dog tooth in instead of a crown. When I got home I BIT MY UNCLE. True story
Posted by booch  on  Thu May 26, 2005  at  01:02 PM
Well, if the knowledge of how to speak a language is located in the kidney (hmm, was it the left kidney or the right one that she received?), it's certainly going to be big news to just about every linguist and neurologist in the world. They've wasted the last 200 years looking at brains instead of kidneys.
Posted by Big Gary in Dallas  on  Thu May 26, 2005  at  04:42 PM
What some people will do for attention. People have now become so desperate for attention that the stories they "make-up" no longer have to even be plausible. The really sad thing is, people print this junk, so in essence their "stupid" plans are working! Which leads me to wonder who is more stupid???

:roll:
Posted by Mark-N-Isa  on  Thu May 26, 2005  at  05:52 PM
Them's fightin' words, Alex...
Posted by booch  on  Thu May 26, 2005  at  10:23 PM
Maybe the different ways a new kidney processes nutrients and minerals into the bloodstream has a subtle effect on the language center of the brain...

...naw, nevermind, even I can't come up with a plausible bullshit theory to explain this one. Unless I'm allowed to use ghosts.

Hey, wait--don't you have to be closely related to someone to have their kidney transplanted into you? I've heard of cases where a parent isn't a close enough match for a transplant, but a sibling is. So what are the odds that a completely unrelated French woman is going to get an English princess' kidney and not reject it?
Posted by Barghest  on  Fri May 27, 2005  at  12:14 AM
As far as her odds of getting a match go, that's why they keep type match databases. To match up available donor organs with patients in need of them. You simply wait until your match becomes available or you die, whichever comes first. Assuming Diana's organs were available for transplant, someone would have been a match and gotten them.

Do people whose kidneys are failing start to lose their language skills? If I donated a kidney will I lose half of the words I know?
Posted by Charybdis  on  Fri May 27, 2005  at  08:12 AM
Actually, nowadays they have gotten to the point where if the person is a compatible blood type match and tests out ok, they can donate a kidney. My mother in law received one from a man at her church, no relation, live person to live person transplant.
Posted by Winona  on  Fri May 27, 2005  at  10:24 AM
Yeah...google live donor kidney transplant...and you get a whole bunch of info. We talked about this on another board recently.
Posted by Maegan  on  Sun May 29, 2005  at  08:13 AM
Can I donate my sphincter of Oddi? It's a good sphincter...
Posted by Hairy Houdini  on  Sun May 29, 2005  at  04:57 PM
My submit word was "lovenstein"! What the hell? Was that a porno I missed?

>>>Can I donate my sphincter of Oddi?<<<

What's that? Some kind of magical improved sphincter that you got as a treasure in a Dungeons and Dragons game? Bag of Holding, Sphere of Annihilation, Sphincter of Oddi...
Posted by Barghest  on  Tue May 31, 2005  at  01:50 AM
sphincter of Oddi, 1. the sheath of muscle fibers investing the associated bile and pancreatic passages as they traverse the wall of the duodenum; the combination of the musculus sphincter ductus choledochi and the musculus sphincter ampullae hepatopancreaticae. Called also Oddi's muscle. 2. musculus sphincter ampullae hepatopancreaticae.

I had to look it up, biology class is a long way behind me it seems. :red:
Posted by Winona  on  Tue May 31, 2005  at  10:10 AM
I thought it was something like that, but I wasn't going to let a trifling thing like anatomy get in the way of springing a lame joke.
Posted by Barghest  on  Tue May 31, 2005  at  08:05 PM
Bargh, I liked your answer better anyway. It wasn't lame, I laughed out loud. 😊
Posted by Winona  on  Wed Jun 01, 2005  at  09:15 AM
Ah, Winona, the Sphincter of Oddi is also an excellent port of call when sailing through the Islets of Langerhans . . . Particularly in spring. 😊
Posted by DFStuckey  on  Thu Jun 02, 2005  at  03:25 AM
yes, the woman does have diana's kidneys, just like i have the excess skin michael jackson left behind...
Posted by Eva  on  Wed Mar 15, 2006  at  05:58 PM
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