How long is Neelix's borrowed lung going to last?

He's a big guy (Yes, I recall my post from last week about Ethan shrinking, but filter!) with one tiny little girl Ocampan lung that's supposed to exhaust itself somewhere upon a tiny little girl turning 9 if she has two of them doing her breathing for her so really he's almost twice the size of her (maybe it just seems that way?) which is not a lot of math to factor in towards an expiry date...

1/2 the lungs supporting a dude twice the size means it will last one fourth as long as they should do, and Kes was already a one year old (the pretty little lady turned 2 in Twisted) when she gifted the organ to her beloved that...

Oh.

Neelix should have died (or seeked (suk?) a new donor if he had time... Why didn't he take Kes form Fury's other Lung or other Kim's lungs from Deadlock of not yet Zombie Lynsday Ballards lungs befroe they... So many dead crew he didn't cherry pick off... Even a Fricking god at one point, on the off chance the hedgehog might become a hedgegod you'd think he would have asked to have some thing from Quinn grafted onto him if not something he was missing and need?) during the run of season three sometime.

Zombie? Clone? Did he spend more time in stasis than sleeping? Or was the Captain just using Joe 90 technology to make the least useful Maquis think they earned and owned Neelix's life history and skill set?

After The Killing Game there was absolutely no reason for Janeway to resort to using the crew fate had had dealt her no matter how difficult it was for her to get even the Doctor to accept her paraphrased tailoring of the truth.

 

You must really, really love this show to pick up on such a subtle plot hole.

 

When Seven of Nine came aboard, they used Borg technology to grow a new pair of Talaxian lungs. Off screen of course, and never mentioned it. But they did, I'm sure.

 

I thought this tit-a-tat happened much later... But in sesaon 3's Macrocosm, this conversation took place:

Can you believe Kathy forgot about her Morale Officer lying on his back threaded through a steel drum, crying and bitching all morose back in season one?

but according to this...

The fuzzy little bastard still only had a single lung in the fourth season even after the Borgette started playing Doctor Frankenstein on his rotting ass, raising him from the dead and whatnot trying to build a better Talaxian.

 

Nice find.

I'm gonna go ahead and say that the Videans, when they genetically re-engineered Kes' lung to make it compatible with his immune system, had to change it so much that it now had much longer than an Ocompan lifespan. I'd also imagine that since they go through organs quite quickly, they are pretty good at boosting resilience and endurance in said organs. Pretty good if you don't have the phage, that is.

Still though, with only one lung, his life expectancy will be shorter. How short? That probably depends on the medical care available with his Talaxian friends (who could probably donate another lung if he ever needed one).

 

If one dissected the human lungs, opening all the alveoli and laying them flat on the ground, they would cover an area as large as a tennis court.

Humans can make "do" with one lung quite easily. In the "old days" before antibioitics, people frequently lost a lung to infection. The surgeon couldn't kill the pneumonia, so he removed the lung riddled with it. I've known 2 people who lost a lung that way in their early twenties, who made it into their 70's.

Given the state of 24th cent medical science, I have no doubt the EMH could make sure Neelix's one good Videan modified Ocampan lung was in perfect working order.

 

In retrospect if they can grow a new kidney with a pill (ST IV: The Voyage Home) and clone a body in hours which Riker sees no ethical obligation not to blast into atoms, this entire situation is very contrived... It's almost as if someone found an old script for M*A*S*H* and changed the names around.

Gods, what about a holographic lung? Then Nelix too could only survive in the holodeck and sickbay? Would Neelix share the mobile emitter (eventually) with an artificial construct who only thinks that he is alive?

 

He had holographic lungs that the doctor designed on the fly, and with those lungs he couldn't move more than couple millimeters, IIRC.

As for the pill theory, Neelix was the first Talaxian that star fleet medicine had encountered. It's feasible that said pills for growing organs was only able to grow human organs...

 

sought

 

DOH!

 

Obviously they lost the ability to clone organs at some point after the creation of the procedure in the mid-to-late 21st Century.

 

This.

We've already seen the Vidiians alter genetics with Be'Lanna in "Faces". The same can be said here.

I think Neelix might live to a ripe old age, even with one lung. He's still got Borg nano's running in his system keeping him alive. I think they'll compensate.

 

FUZZY LITTLE BASTARD

Guy Gardner if you write fanfic I wanna read it so bad!

 

I hate to admit this, but I wondered the same thing.

 

My rewrite of Endgame.

http://s9.zetaboards.com/Jacks_Place/topic/161697/1/

Remember the Simpsons where Doctor Hibbert said that Larry Hahgman had all those extra redundant internal organs and that he was probably going to live for ever?

Was Neelix really making new friends or was he inspecting all those spare parts for freshness and durability on that asteroid they found full of Talaxians?

 

Since the Ocampa lifespan could be prolonged. I guess that Neelix's lung will last an entire Talaxian life. It will adapt to its environment.

 

We don't know what causes the Ocampa lifespan to be that short... it could be completely because the Ocampa brain burns the body out with all the dormant psychic power.

Suspiria's technology could allow the Ocampa mind to channel the Ocampa psionics to reduce the time it takes for their brains burn up their bodies by half (and double their lifespan), while granting them gnarly psychic powers to boil water (and faces) and eat the lifeforce of plants, etc.

The actual body itself could last as long as a Vulcan's lifespan, which would mean Kes' lung would outlast Neelix.

 

Didn't Worf get a new spine cloned/replicated for him in TNG? Why didn't they do that for Neelix? Yea, I remember Worfs surgery was controversial for the medical staff and had huge risks, but a few more years down the road couldnt it have been a viable treatment?

 

..in an Ocampan.

We're talking about taking that organ and transplanting it in an entirely other species. It's possible in Monkey's to Humans because we share almost the same genetic markers. We don't know that Ocampans & Talaxians share any compatiblilty. The Vidiian had to genetically alter Kes' lung to make it compatible with Neelix' physiology. It might not have any of the Ocampan traits left in it.

 

Besides a Heart, I don't believe there is any replacement for organ tissue other than transplant. Worf's spine is bone.