Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic said the nation's first-ever face transplant surgery took 22 hours from start to finish. The identity of the recipient of the donor face remains a mystery.
She can eat pizza. And hamburgers. She can smell perfume, drink coffee from a cup, and purse her lips as if to blow a kiss. Except that one lip is hers, and the other is from a dead woman. She is the nation's first face transplant patient, and on Thursday night, she went home from a Cleveland hospital. "I'm happy about myself," she told her doctors.
"She accepted her new face," said Dr. Maria Siemionow, the Cleveland Clinic reconstructive surgeon who led the historic operation in early December.
The woman's identity has not been revealed, and hospital officials won't say where she went. She and her family have declined requests for an interview.
She suffered a traumatic injury several years ago, the details of which doctors also won't reveal. But it left the woman with no nose, palate, or way to eat or breathe normally. In a 22-hour procedure, 80 percent of her face was replaced with bone, muscles, nerves, skin and blood vessels from another woman who had just died.
The marvels of modern medicine. The part about the dead woman's lips is a little creepy though. Imagine being kissed by them!
She can eat pizza. And hamburgers. She can smell perfume, drink coffee from a cup, and purse her lips as if to blow a kiss. Except that one lip is hers, and the other is from a dead woman. She is the nation's first face transplant patient, and on Thursday night, she went home from a Cleveland hospital. "I'm happy about myself," she told her doctors.
"She accepted her new face," said Dr. Maria Siemionow, the Cleveland Clinic reconstructive surgeon who led the historic operation in early December.
The woman's identity has not been revealed, and hospital officials won't say where she went. She and her family have declined requests for an interview.
She suffered a traumatic injury several years ago, the details of which doctors also won't reveal. But it left the woman with no nose, palate, or way to eat or breathe normally. In a 22-hour procedure, 80 percent of her face was replaced with bone, muscles, nerves, skin and blood vessels from another woman who had just died.
The marvels of modern medicine. The part about the dead woman's lips is a little creepy though. Imagine being kissed by them!