A New Hampshire woman has few options because the body rejects a face transplant



[ad_1]

Carmen Blandin Tarleton does not want to go back. She is fighting for a third face.

Tarleton, 12, away from her husband's attack with a baseball bat and laundry that burned her most of the body, regained some of her life after dozens of surgeries and a transplant from face in 2013. She could play the piano. And a synthetic cornea helped her see with one eye, allowing her to clear a path in Manchester, New Hampshire.

For years, the contours of his new face have swollen into episodes of rejection that doctors have successfully treated. But now, at age 51, with cut blood vessels and facial tissues darkening and dying, Tarleton's immune system totally rejects his face.

This forced her to face two difficult possibilities: to receive a new face or if her fabric quickly fails, to rebuild her initial face – and to recover the disfigurement she had left six years ago.

"We all know that we are in unexplored waters," she told the Boston Globe. "I would rather not have to suffer a catastrophic failure."

Transplanted organs, such as the kidneys, heart and lungs, usually have a limited life in their new body. However, the doctors point out that the field of facial transplants is still experimental and that no long term study or risk assessment is guiding surgeons in a procedure practiced about 40 times in the world, reported the # 39; s. Associated Press agency.

Bohdan Pomahac, director of plastic surgery transplant at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and one of Tarleton's surgeons, told The Globe: "It's really not realistic to hope will last [the patient’s] lifespan. & # 39;

Brian Gastman, a transplant surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic who ran the first face transplant in the United States in 2008, told the Globe that many face transplants failed in the years following the procedure. "We all think that every patient will probably need a transplant" at some point, he said.

In the United States, no patient transplanted with a face lost his face, said AP, although one man in France received a second transplant after his body rejected the first.

Tarleton spoke openly about her attack and recovery, which began several hours after her ex-husband beat her with a baseball bat and sprinkled her over the laundry body, which burned her to death. 80% and made it legally blind.

She underwent nearly 40 surgeries in three months, the Globe reported. Dozens of blood transfusions shocked her immune system and when she received the skin of the donor's neck and face, her nose, her lips and a bundle of muscles, nerves and arteries, her new face bombarded his immune system.

Her doctors have come up with a dangerous solution: extinguish her immune system to give her new face a chance, while putting her in danger of infection.

It worked and she was able to move forward in her life. He now understands the grandchildren.

But she is now waiting for a decision to go to another transplant or to return to her disfigured face. His doctors are encouraged by the recovery of his immune system. But other problems have arisen. Her synthetic cornea has failed, leaving her almost completely blind. She applied for a guide dog.

"It's not common things that go wrong, but when things go wrong, you have to deal with them," she told The Globe. "I'll go back to where I was, how, I do not know, I'll go through that."

Despite this, the transplant relieved Tarleton of pain, with neck scars making it difficult to move his head. She decreased her pain medication one year after the transplant. In the years that followed, she wrote a memoir and plucked a banjo.

She also spends time at her piano, shouting songs like "Desperado", the Eagles' classic, without knowing what face her grandchildren will be in the future.

[ad_2]

Source link