already recovering well. Previously, he could only breathe and eat through tubes. Now he is expected to begin relearning how to talk, eat, smile and laugh within weeks." This didn't involve simply placing a mask of skin over what was there, which is how I've always imagined such procedures. Keep reading:
"In a 24-hour operation, a team of 30 surgeons at the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona, Spain, led by surgeon Joan Pere Barret, started by removing what remained of the man's face - skin, veins and arteries - leaving just his eyeballs and tongue.
"The team then replaced this with practically the entire face of a dead donor, including all the skin, muscles and nerves, the entire nose, the lips, palate, all the teeth, the cheekbones and the entire lower jaw. These were grafted by microsurgery to what remained of the patient's own face, and the blood supply reconnected. In the final part of the operation, the surgeons transplanted bones and connecting nerves to the patient's own face."
In other words, I could be whole again. I have a great deal more remaining bone and tissue than the farmer had, although my mouth droops because of the removal of the mandible during cancer surgery. Both that surgery and two later ones were planned to restore my appearance to something close to normal. At first it was hoped my drinking, speaking and talking would return, for I still have my tongue and the necessary inventory in my throat. All three surgeries failed, leaving me as I am today, damaged but happy and productive. And in fact the surgery was a great success, because I appear to be cancer-free. Why should I complain?
Still...what if I had this big surgery? I'd need to undergo rehabilitation to learn to speak again, but a Cleveland doctor says one of her face transplant patients, after two years, "can say all her vowels and has such normal sensation in her face that she can feel a kiss." This is encouraging. After the day in first grade when Sister Ambroisetta taught us to chant "A, E, I, O, U...and sometimes Y," I never thought the day would come when I couldn't say my vowels. But I can't, and don't bother asking me about my consonants.
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