Abstract
The World Health Organization supports that corneal transplantation is the most frequent organ and tissue transplant in the world. We wonder then, what are the social and subjective implications of losing a cornea and becoming blind in one eye in the course of youth marginalization contexts? How do people wait for the graft? How do they perceive the operation? How do they make sense of living with a cornea that comes from another human being? In this paper, I turn my personal experience after being blinded in one eye at the age of 20 during my youth and having to wait 4.380 days with a disfigured face in Santiago del Estero (Argentina) to receive a cornea transplant. I incorporate observable, discursive and relational elements that allow us to enter into the experience of the person who is waiting, and who has a tissue removed and implanted.
Keywords:
bodies; organ transplantation; therapeutic itinerary; personal narrative