This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen
on .
It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
'Your gift will not be wasted': face transplant patient meets donor's widow
'Your gift will not be wasted': face transplant patient meets donor's widow
(about 2 hours later)
Standing in a stately medical clinic library, Lilly Ross reached out and touched the face of a stranger, prodding the rosy cheeks and eyeing the hairless gap in a chin she once had known so well.
It made for an emotional meeting. More than a year after Andy Sandness had a groundbreaking face transplant at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, he met the wife of the dead man whose face it used to be.
“That’s why he always grew it so long, so he could try to mesh it together on the chin,” she told Andy Sandness, as he shut his eyes and braced for the tickle of her touch on new nerve endings in the face that had been her husband’s.
Andy Sandness, 32, from Wyoming, had 56 hours of surgery last summer to have the face of Calen “Rudy” Ross transplanted in the first such operation the clinic had performed. The recent meeting, arranged by the clinic, brought Sandness and the donor’s wife, Lucy, together for the first time.
Sixteen months after transplant surgery gave Sandness the face that had belonged to Calen “Rudy” Ross, he met the woman who had agreed to donate her high school sweetheart’s visage to a man who lived nearly a decade without one.
Speaking to the Associated Press, Ross said she had been fretful beforehand, afraid that seeing Sandness would bring back painful memories of her husband, and childhood sweetheart, who had taken his own life. In the event, there was little likeness: the two men had such different bone structure, the face did not look the same.
The two came together last month in a meeting arranged by America’s Mayo Clinic, where Sandness underwent 56 hours of surgery, the clinic’s first such transplant. With her toddler Leonard in tow, Ross strode toward Sandness, tears welling in her eyes as they tightly embraced.
In the tearful meeting in the clinic’s library, the two hugged each other on sight. Ross said that instead of her former husband, she saw a man whose life had been transformed by the transplant. “It made me proud,” she said. “The way Rudy saw himself, he didn’t see himself like that.”
Ross had fretted before the meeting, fearful of the certain reminders of her husband, who took his own life. But her stress quickly melted away – without Calen’s eyes, forehead or strong cheeks, Sandness didn’t look like him, she told herself.
Sandness said: “I wanted to show you that your gift will not be wasted,”
Instead, she saw a man whose life had changed through her husband’s gift, newly confident after 10 years of hiding from mirrors and staring eyes.
In the marathon operation led by Samir Mardini, Mayo Clinic surgeons overlaid the donor’s skin onto Sandness’s raw facial tissue. Over more than two days they restored his nose, his upper and lower jaws, teeth, salivary glands and facial muscles. The operation was planned out using virtual surgical technology and 3D printing to maximise the aesthetic outcome.
“It made me proud,” Ross said of the 32-year-old Sandness. “The way Rudy saw himself ... he didn’t see himself like that.”
Sandness must now take drugs every day to prevent his body from rejecting the face, and constantly works to retrain his nerves, giving himself facial massages and striving to improve his speech by running through the alphabet while in the car or the shower.
Sandness and Calen Ross lived lives full of hunting, fishing and exploring the outdoors before their struggles consumed them, 10 years and hundreds of miles apart.
Sandness lost most of his face in 2006 when be put a rifle under his chin and pulled the trigger. A decade later, Calen Ross shot himself and died southwestern Minnesota. Horrifically scarred, Sandness had become almost a recluse by then.
Sandness put a rifle below his chin in late 2006 in his native Wyoming and pulled the trigger, destroying most of his face. Ross shot himself and died in south-western Minnesota a decade later.
Lucy Ross had already agreed to donate her husband’s lungs,kidneys and other organs when LifeSource, a US non-profit that facilitates organ and tissue transplants broached the idea of face donation. It turned out that the men’s ages, blood type and skin colour were such good matches that Mardini said they could have been cousins.
By then, Sandness had receded from contact with the outside world, ashamed of his injuries – surgeries to rebuild his face had left him a quarter-sized mouth, and his prosthetic nose frequently fell off.
Ross, who was eight months’ pregnant at the time, consented, knowing that her son might one day see their father’s face on a stranger. One reason she went ahead, she told AP, was that she wanted her son to understand what his father did to help others.
Hope first came in 2012 when the Mayo Clinic started exploring a face transplant operation and again in early 2016 when he was wait-listed for the procedure.
The surgery has given Sandness a new lease of life. Before the operation, he kept out of sight. “I wouldn’t go out in public. I hated going into bigger cities,” he said. “And now I’m just really spreading my wings and doing the things I missed out on, going out to restaurants and eating, going dancing.”
Ross already had agreed to donate her husband’s lungs, kidneys and other organs to patients. Then LifeSource, a Midwestern nonprofit organisation that facilitates organ and tissue donations, broached the idea of a donation for a man awaiting a face transplant at the clinic.
Mardini and the medical team have delighted in Sandness’s progress. “It turns out Andy is not as much of an introvert as we thought,” Mardini said. “He’s enjoying these times, where he’s missed out on 10 years of his life.”
The men’s ages, blood type, skin colour and facial structure were such a near-perfect match that Sandness’s surgeon, Samir Mardini, said they could have been cousins.
Ross and Sandness told AP that they now feel like family and plan to stay in touch. The meeting, Ross said, helped her get over a year filled with grieving, funeral arrangements, childbirth and difficult decisions about organ donations. “Meeting Andy, it has finally given me closure,” she said. “Everything happened so fast.”
Ross consented, despite her hesitation about some day seeing her husband’s face on a stranger. Eight months’ pregnant at the time, she said one reason to go forward was that she wanted the couple’s child to one day understand what his father did to help others.
More than a year after a surgery that took a team of more than 60 medical professionals, Sandness is finding a groove in everyday life while still treasuring the simple tasks he lost for 10 years, such as chewing a piece of pizza.
He’s been promoted in his work as an oilfield electrician and is expanding his world while still prizing the anonymity that comes with a normal face.
“I wouldn’t go out in public. I hated going into bigger cities,” he said. “And now I’m just really spreading my wings and doing the things I missed out on – going out to restaurants and eating, going dancing.”
Life with a transplanted face takes work, every day. Sandness is on a daily regimen of anti-rejection medication. He’s constantly working to retrain his nerves to operate in sync with his new face, giving himself facial massages and striving to improve his speech by running through the alphabet while driving or showering.
“I wanted to show you that your gift will not be wasted,” Sandness told Ross.
Mardini and the rest of Sandness’s medical team have delighted in seeing their patient and friend open up since the procedure, going out of his way to talk with strangers whose gaze he once hid from.
“It turns out Andy is not as much of an introvert as we thought,” Mardini said. “He’s enjoying these times, where he’s missed out on 10 years of his life.”
Ross and Sandness say they feel like family now. They plan to forge a stronger connection, and Sandness said he’ll contribute to a trust fund for Leonard’s education.
On the day of their meeting, the boy stared curiously at Sandness at first. But later, he walked over and waved to be picked up. Sandness happily obliged.
For Ross, just meeting Sandness felt like a huge release – a way to get past a year filled with grieving, funeral planning, childbirth and gut-wrenching decisions about organ donations.
“Meeting Andy, it has finally given me closure,” she said, her voice choking as it trailed off. “Everything happened so fast.”
