Old-timers will recall a time when a cataract operation used to be major surgery requiring hospital stays and month-long recovery times. Today it is an outpatient procedure that takes a matter of minutes; the patient is back home in a few hours and is able to resume normal activities. The point is that medical marvels have come a long way in recent times. What we used to think of as being in the realm of science fiction is a reality today.
The John Travolta and Nicolas Cage starrer movie seemed really farfetched when it first released just about 20 years ago in 1997. It was a movie essentially about face transplants a concept that seemed unlikely in the extreme.
Two men, quite distinctive in appearance have their faces swapped and assume each other’s appearance and apparently each other’s lives as well. Everyone around was taken in! The movie depicted some surgical procedure where the faces of two men were ‘lifted’ off and exchanged. I remember thinking at the time that had such a film been made in Bollywood, we would all have scoffed; but that we are more accepting of Hollywood’s slicker brand of BS.
Clearly I was wrong; as were others who had the same reaction as me. Katie Stubblefield actually received a face transplant recently. She had attempted suicide at the age of 18 by shooting herself in the face, losing her mouth and nose, displacing her eyes. Now 21, Katie literally has a new face.
Katie had been on the list for a face transplant and in 2017 there was a donor face available. A 31 hour surgery resulted in a 100% face transplant for Katie. Prior to this, Katie underwent psychotherapy to become eligible to receive the transplant. She will now be on medication for the rest of her life and also undergo occupational and speech therapy.
Katie’s was the 40th face transplant ever to take place; however, she is the youngest to receive a full face transplant. Prior to this as well, people who have become injured in accidents and fires have received face transplants from donors who have died after having pledged their organs to others during their lifetime. This is the image of Richard Norris who received a face transplant after his face was disfigured because of an incident involving a gun.
One of the main flaws of the film Face/Off was of course that it tried to make us believe that our faces are just the skin and muscles; when in fact, our bone structure is at least as important a determinant of how we look. The ‘new’ face that the individual receives will also be imperfect and very different from the face of the donor. The surgery is very long and extremely complex; requiring surgeries before and after. Every blood vessel has to be precisely severed and reattached. Patrick Hardison in this image received prosthetic ears, skin grafts and underwent some 70 surgeries before he received a face transplant. So not quite Face/Off but nearer it than we would have thought possible!
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