(Warning: graphic images) Putting on a Brave Face

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Face transplant woman's brave fight


Connie Culp before and after her transplant surgery

A woman horribly disfigured when her husband shot her in the face at point-blank range has made a brave public appearance to talk about her extraordinary recovery and her continuing fight to live a normal life.
Connie Culp was in a difficult relationship with a sometimes violent husband in 2004 when he "something snapped, he got his shotgun out and just shot me".
Connie endured 30 operations and became a recluse before making history a ground-breaking face transplant.
Surgeons replaced 80 per cent of her face, including a nose, cheeks, lower eyelids, upper jaw, palate and some of her bone structure.
Now Connie has spoken of how that surgery changed her life, transforming her from someone children would tease with chants of "monster" to someone who can "hold my head up high. I know it’s not my face, but I feel so thankful that I have one now,” she said in Britain's Mirror newspaper
Connie says she remembers everything about the horrific attack: That’s what the doctors can’t believe. I remember him lifting the gun and what he says to me and then firing. It’s an image that will never leave me, for the rest of my life.”




A digital image showing the damage caused by the gunshot, and the extensive effort to repair it.


Her husband, Tom, turned the gun on himself after shooting his wife but he survived.
Now he is due to be released from prison.
“He has a restraining order but *nobody knows what he’ll do. We’ll just have to wait and see," Connie said.
Connie was put on a transplant waiting listing in October 2008 and waited just two months before a suitable donor became available - a woman who died of a heart attack.
She has met the donor's family.
“You still have to fight and live with the memories of why you needed a transplant every day," Connie said.
“It’s the little things that are my goals. I want to be able to drink a milkshake through a straw again, but I haven’t got enough strength.
“I was given a miracle when I *survived the shooting,” she says. “Then I got a second miracle when I survived the face transplant. It’s still tough, but my life is so much better now.

Source: Face transplant woman's brave fight - The West Australian

[eezychair]

amazing how science and medicine is reaching this point. Perhaps in the future, mas advanced pa jud. I hope this benefits plenty of people...

[street_of_no_return]

demonyoha sa BANA ani niya oe. hurot akong bilib aning bayahana, ni fight gyd siya. thumbs up for you

[b1 huck]

shotgun gi gamit no? looya sab uy...

[cptn_star]

grabe og kalig.on ning bayhana. if not for her courage to live positively, i doubt she would still be in her normal sanity.

[Black kangaroo]

grabeha oi shotgun

[Vicodin]

wow she's lucky to be alive gud. i wonder if the transplants how long that face transplant will last kai bacin her body might go in rejection.

[Ky_s_d_LimiT]

thank God nga buhi pa xa..grabeha oi gi shotgun sa bana...

[GOOGLE]

Grabeha sad ana oi, maayo nalang kay naka survive siya ug shotgun at point blank.. Unsa nga klase nga shotgun naka na noh?

[mybuuz]

for me brave siya kay naka-survive siya sa shooting ug operations. pero ngano man niagwanta siya anang banaha, she even said to wait for her husband when he gets out of prison. pagka-toytoy, kung wala pa ni-insist iyang anak nga ayaw na hala sige pa gyapon hangtud buhi pa.