But What Most of Us Really Need Is a Personality Transplant

Nick Gillespie | February 6, 2006

The first recipient of a face transplant has made a public appearance:

"I now have a face like everyone else," Isabelle Dinoire said at her first news conference since the groundbreaking surgery in November.

In speech that was heavily slurred, she explained how she was disfigured by a dog bite last year and thanked the family of the donor who gave her new lips, a chin and nose.

More, including pictures, here and here.

Really nothing short of amazing.

Comments

|2.6.06 @ 10:43AM|#

I'm wondering if it would be possible for burn victims to get entire face transplants in the near future. I don't see why not.
I can see why she has a hard time closing her mouth. How weird would it be to have your face not really as attached as it is now. I'm trying to imagine what that would be like.
*shudder*

Jeff P.|2.6.06 @ 10:55AM|#

She should go right out and get about a dozen lip and nose piercings.

|2.6.06 @ 10:57AM|#

Thank god for the ability to block images. It may be amazing, but it sure ain't pretty.

|2.6.06 @ 11:01AM|#

Doctors are now worried that her continued smoking is going to cause the face fall off.
"Uh, miss.... your, uh.... cheek is peeling away."

Warren|2.6.06 @ 11:16AM|#

Ms. Dinoire, a divorced mother of two teenage daughters, spoke frankly about the attack in May by her Labrador. She said that she was passed out when the dog mauled her and that she did not immediately realize the extent of her disfigurement when she awoke.

�When I woke up, I tried to light a cigarette, and I didn't understand why I couldn't hold it between my lips,� she said.

Wha huh!?

|2.6.06 @ 11:43AM|#

You read that post and your brain says "don't click on the picture .. don't click on the picture " and the little man in your head says "must click must click"

|2.6.06 @ 11:48AM|#

actually her face looks pretty good considering... but those teeth! yikes!

dhex|2.6.06 @ 11:50AM|#

she looks better than any libertarian candidate for president. at least she'll be able to pass as a human!

|2.6.06 @ 1:04PM|#

Passed out? Passed out on what? What kind of drug makes someone so numb she doesn't feel a DOG EATING HER FACE?

(I heard there was a rumor that she'd tried to commit suicide. That's the only explanation that seems to fit the facts.)

|2.6.06 @ 1:07PM|#

What kind of dog would do this? Unless she passed out with a T-bone in her mouth, why did the dog rip her face off? I think there's more to this.

Also, I know no one here thinks we need anti-drug propaganda, but that woman's face is a pretty good reason not to take drugs to "forget."

|2.6.06 @ 1:21PM|#

Hmmm. We may need to come up with some kind of "One new face per customer" rule. I mean, what's to stop her from going out and getting her face eaten again?
We shouldn't be enabling this woman.

Her face may have been covered in delicious HoneyBaked ham. THat would have done it. I can see the Drug-free america slogan now "This is your face on drugs and ham".

|2.6.06 @ 1:26PM|#

I'm going to take his face...off.

|2.6.06 @ 1:27PM|#

There was a show on the Discovery Health channel not too long ago about face transplants. What I remember from it the biggest challenge was keeping the patient's body from rejecting the tissue. Probably sometime in the next few decades face transplants will become more commonplace.

|2.6.06 @ 1:28PM|#

Does anyone else remember the episode of SNL where Garertt Morris got a face transplant? Unfortunatly, it was the face of a little white girl.

|2.6.06 @ 1:54PM|#

Can I have a big black penis?

|2.6.06 @ 3:55PM|#

What kind of dog would do this? Unless she passed out with a T-bone in her mouth, why did the dog rip her face off? I think there's more to this.

The obvious answer is a poorly socialized, possibly semi-feral dog. This sounds like what I've read about the wolf-dog hybrids that have become increasingly popular. Hybrids that have too much wolf in them have been known to attack their owners if they do so much as slip and fall--in their mind they are making their move to establish leadership of the "pack." Such lethal pack behavior has long been bred out of dogs, but I wonder how easily they can creep back in if the right circumstances are present?

Either way, it's a horrifying thought.

|2.6.06 @ 6:58PM|#

The mauler in question was a Laborador retriever... not exactly a junkyard dog sorta breed.

|2.6.06 @ 7:03PM|#

"The mauler in question was a Laborador retriever... not exactly a junkyard dog sorta breed."

Wasn't it Terry Prachett who said all dogs are 24 hours and one meal away from being wolves?

|2.6.06 @ 7:05PM|#

They say the same thing about straight guys in prison.

|2.6.06 @ 11:12PM|#

i think she o.d.'ed to try to kill herself. i've heard it suggested that the dog was trying to wake her up.

|2.7.06 @ 2:21PM|#

Face transplant? What I'm wondering is why they didn't just give her good ol' plastic surgery. Most people in Hollywood seem to be capable of eating, breathing, and speaking out of of mostly plastic facial features -- why was an actual transplant necessary?

|2.8.06 @ 1:56AM|#

Smacky, because there was no face to reshape.

Jimbo - This woman probably slept with that dog nearby 1000 times. If it wanted to kill her, she would be dead. But it was when she ODed the dog responded in this unfortunate way. Remember that Sigfried and Roy blame the tiger's unfortunate behavior on a stroke.