Sreemoyee Chatterjee
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Written By: Sreemoyee Chatterjee | Published : September 16, 2018 3:09 PM IST
This oldest recipient has got a new lease of life after a face transplant © Shutterstock
You have definitely heard about kidney or liver or heart transplant. But what about a face transplant where a recipient gets a new face altogether? Sounds out of the box? A 64-year-old from Quebec has recently undergone a face transplant and has become the world's oldest face recipient and has able to breathe, eat, smell and speak with his new face for the first time in the last seven years. Maurice Desjardins, the sexagenarian, blew off half his face during a hunting trip in 2011 when a bullet hit his face and a significant part of it including his jaws, teeth, lips, nose and face muscles was lost, stated a recent media report.
A 100-member medical team worked on constructing a new face for Maurice and after a 30-hour-long surgery, he finally has got a new face. Not just that, this procedure is the first face transplant to have taken place in Canada and the Commonwealth, highlights the news report.
This surgery that took place at Hospital Maisonneuve-Rosemont in Montreal last year, led by Dr Daniel Borsuk, has given a new lease of life. Until the surgery, the patient was in never ending pain and had to breathe through a hole in his neck, said the doctors. Maurice had to go through a long pre-operative procedure that included several tests to check if he was both physically and mentally fit for the surgery.
He has been confined to his house since the accident took place. His facial disfiguration had restricted it social interactions and he, being a natural extrovert, went through a tough time, stated the media report.
Dr Borsuk who conducted the face transplant spoke in an interview about the adverse effect a facial distortion can have on self-confidence and productivity of a person. He also highlighted that facial disfiguration can make a person suffer from identity crisis as our face is directly related to our sense of identity.
