Modern medicine is AMAZING.

I continue to be as awed by these full face transplants as I was when I first heard of Isabelle Dinoire, the first person to undergo this reconstructive surgery.

Now, doctors have successfully performed the first face transplant here in the United States, on Connie Culp. Ms. Culp was severely deformed in 2004 after her husband shot her in the face with a shotgun. The blast obliterated the center of her face, leaving what almost looked like a meteor crater where her nose used to be.

I didn’t place any of the “before” photos here, because…I don’t know. Silly reasons, I suppose. It felt too exploitative (but writing about her on my blog apparently isn’t). but look at these side-by-side shots. Yes, the “new” Ms. Culp is in for a few more surgeries to tighten up some areas and smooth out others, but it’s just…amazing. She has a new outlook and a new face.

This is only the fourth full face transplant ever done, and so far the most comprehensive. Surgeons replaced 80 percent of her face with the donor face. This raises all sorts of questions. She’s 46 years old. For slightly more than 40 of those years, she saw the same face staring back at her in the mirror, and friends and family saw the same face looking at them. Then her total dick of a husband obliterated that person. Or at least the physical representation of that person.

What sort of psychological ramifications come along with these surgeries? What is it like to look into a mirror, knowing that it’s you, but not seeing your own face? How do you process the fact that you’re now looking at a stranger, about whom you knew nothing prior to their untimely death that has now granted you their face? What do you do if you ever encounter someone who knew that stranger?

My mind is abuzz with all sorts of Twilight Zone scenarios and stories, but then I pull back and remind myself that this isn’t some science fiction concept. This is real. Connie Culp has another person’s face and another chance to be as extraordinarily normal as she wants to be.

Like I said before: Modern medicine is AMAZING.