OT/French face transplant woman happy with new look
tiny dancer
French face transplant woman happy with new look
By Jon Boyle1 hour, 25 minutes ago
The French woman who underwent the world's first partial face transplant
said on Monday she was grateful simply to have a face "like everybody else"
and hopes to resume a normal life quickly.
Isabelle Dinoire, 38, smiled and laughed awkwardly in her first appearance
before reporters since the operation in November and spoke in slurred and
laboured tones.
She still has fine scar lines running from her nose down to her jaw,
dividing her upper face from the transplanted lower area, and does not seem
to be able to close her mouth.
"Since the day of the operation I have had a face like everybody else,"
Dinoire told a packed news conference at Amiens hospital in northeastern
France.
"I am now able to open my mouth and eat. Recently, I have also been able to
feel my lips, my nose, my mouth," she said, adding that feeling was
returning slowly and she felt no pain.
Dinoire was left disfigured after she was mauled by her own dog last May and
surgeons gave her a new nose, lips and chin.
"Every day, when I left my house, I had to face up to people's stares and
what they were thinking," she said.
Doctors did not show of a picture of Dinoire before the attack or before the
operation, although she said she was happy when she looked in the mirror for
the first time after surgery.
She said she was happy with her new face and regarded it as her own. "I can
now smile and make faces so I think I have taken over the face," she said.
Asked about her plans for the future, she said: "I want to resume a normal
life."
TREATMENT AND EXERCISE
Dinoire will continue treatment and exercises to regain full use of her
facial muscles after the 15-hour operation, in which surgeons used tissues,
muscles, arteries and veins from a dead woman to rebuild her face.
The transplant has given hope to others disfigured by burns or accidents,
but it has also raised psychological and ethical issues for the recipient
and the donor family.
"I now understand people with a handicap," Dinoire said, expressing hope
that her operation could now help others.
Some newspapers in Britain and France have suggested Dinoire deliberately
took an overdose of sleeping pills before being attacked by her dog and that
the face donor had committed suicide.
Dinoire did not comment on these reports. Doctors have denied she tried to
kill herself, saying she had been drowsy at the time of the dog's attack
because she had taken medicine to calm her down following an argument with
her daughter.
She said she had been unconscious when the dog bit her, and realised how
badly she was injured only when she tried to smoke a cigarette and could not
hold it between her lips.
Doctors have criticised media coverage of the case, saying much of it has
been sensationalist, and repeated a plea for reporters to respect the
patient's privacy.
The surgeons who conducted the operation said they had asked the Health
Ministry for permission to carry out five similar transplants, but did not
say whether the ministry had responded.
"She is the first but she is not going to remain unique," said Professor
Jean-Michel Dubernard, a surgeon from a hospital in Lyon who was also
involved in the transplant.
Doctors have said they cannot rule out rejection of Dinoire's transplant in
the future but said the use of bone marrow from the donor had helped to
reduce such dangers.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060206/hl_nm/france_transplant_dc_8
Bo Raxo
"tiny dancer" <tinyda...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:_hLFf.21163$eY5....@bignews7.bellsouth.net...
>
> Some newspapers in Britain and France have suggested Dinoire deliberately
> took an overdose of sleeping pills before being attacked by her dog and
that
> the face donor had committed suicide.
>
> Dinoire did not comment on these reports. Doctors have denied she tried to
> kill herself, saying she had been drowsy at the time of the dog's attack
> because she had taken medicine to calm her down following an argument with
> her daughter.
>
Attacked by her own dog. Had her face chewed off. 'Nuff said.
Bo Raxo
Uncle Buck
Well, yeah, that's part of the story, no doubt about it. What I found
interesting was in one article I read that the dog was put down "against family
wishes". I love my dog, but if she ever mauled my face off while I slept, she
wouldn't be around very much longer. I would say the same of a person if I knew
I could get away with it.
hiuyt88
admits she took a heavy dose of pills. She further claims that while asleep
her dog chewed on her face. Do some research. Go as far back as the bible.
Please submit if you can find another case where an asleep dog owner was
chewed upon by her/his own dog. What happened to Dinoire's face is a mystery
to the public. She probably lost part of her face in a failed suicide
attempt of some type. It is very possible she took the overdose AFTER she
damaged her own face.
"tiny dancer" <tinyda...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:_hLFf.21163$eY5....@bignews7.bellsouth.net...
ronniecat
Yabbut at least one version of the story is that the dog was
frantically trying to wake her up after she took an overdose of pills
in a suicide attempt, rather than biting her out of garden-variety
aggression. I have no idea if that is remotely plausible but it was
one version of the story, quickly quashed in her doctors' attempts to
discredit the suicide story (their version is that she "took a pill"
to "calm down" after a fight with her daughter and the dog - a
Labrador retriever, one of the gentlest breeds known - inexplicably
gnawed her face off. But that it wasn't a suicide attempt and she was
way stable enough to be the first person to get a face transplant.
Right.)
ronnie
tiny dancer
"ronniecat" <ronn...@mycollar.ronniecat.com> wrote in message
news:597ku1h1a826a1qof...@4ax.com...
That Labrador didn't bite it's owners face off, I'd bet my life savings on
it.
Uncle Buck
wrote:
>That Labrador didn't bite it's owners face off, I'd bet my life savings on
>it.
Well? Don't keep us guessing! ;-) Do you think it might have been extreme
abuse by a s.o. or some such? Or that maybe she did it herself in a drugged
stupor? :-?
tiny dancer
"Uncle Buck" <Uncl...@SpamMeNot.com> wrote in message
news:67jlu1tcbm7t05jc6...@4ax.com...
I don't know enough about the story, wish I did know more. But the woman
sounds like a loon. And you just have to know, ginger would never bite off
your face like that. Besides, if she did hurt you in the least, you'd wake
up, wouldn't you? I may not know enough about 'french loons', ;-> but I
do know Labrador Retrievers! ;) Way too many questionable happenings
in this story IMO.
By the way bucky, thanks for the 'horse link'. Man, I'm still trying to
grasp that whole mess.
td
ronniecat
00:15:19 -0500, "tiny dancer" <tinyda...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>I don't know enough about the story, wish I did know more. But the woman
>sounds like a loon. And you just have to know, ginger would never bite off
>your face like that. Besides, if she did hurt you in the least, you'd wake
>up, wouldn't you? I may not know enough about 'french loons', ;-> but I
>do know Labrador Retrievers! ;) Way too many questionable happenings
>in this story IMO.
Did you read in the article posted here yesterday that after she did
wake up she didn't realize her face had been injured until she tried
to have a cigarette and couldn't hold it between her lips?????????
So her story is she had an argument with her daughter, got upset, took
a pill to calm down, went to sleep, her Lab *literally chewed her
lower face off* for no reason she can give us, she woke up and didn't
notice anything unusual had happened (didn't notice any pain or blood)
until she couldn't have a smoke.
To quote my dad, "I was born one night, but not last night!"
I questioned the alternate story that the Lab had bitten her trying to
wake her up after a suicide attempt; but after reading the posts here
I see there is a much more plausible version of events: she mutilated
her own face before, after or during a suicide attempt or psychiatric
episode. How, to do so much damage, I can't imagine. Knife? Chemicals?
Maybe she in fact passed out from loss of blood or pain.
In any case, too bad the doggie paid for her mental illness with its
life.
ronnie
Uncle Buck
wrote:
>
>"Uncle Buck" <Uncl...@SpamMeNot.com> wrote in message
>news:67jlu1tcbm7t05jc6...@4ax.com...
>> On Wed, 8 Feb 2006 11:52:23 -0500, "tiny dancer"
><tinyda...@hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >That Labrador didn't bite it's owners face off, I'd bet my life savings
>on
>> >it.
>>
>> Well? Don't keep us guessing! ;-) Do you think it might have been
>extreme
>> abuse by a s.o. or some such? Or that maybe she did it herself in a
>drugged
>> stupor? :-?
>
>
>I don't know enough about the story, wish I did know more. But the woman
>sounds like a loon. And you just have to know, ginger would never bite off
>your face like that. Besides, if she did hurt you in the least, you'd wake
>up, wouldn't you? I may not know enough about 'french loons', ;-> but I
>do know Labrador Retrievers! ;) Way too many questionable happenings
>in this story IMO.
I hadn't really thought to question it until I noticed everyone else doing so.
But when I did, I realized it is somewhat questionable. I just thought you had
a more firm opinion. For myself, I think she probably did a Joplin on herself.
Ich... What a way to (almost) go... :-X
>By the way bucky, thanks for the 'horse link'. Man, I'm still trying to
>grasp that whole mess.
No pun intended, I'm sure.
;-)
tiny dancer
"Uncle Buck" <Uncl...@SpamMeNot.com> wrote in message
Of course not! :-P Ya know, the guy wasn't bad looking, I mean, I've
seen a hell of a lot worse. Now those *thong guys*..............
td