FACE EATER
Out of context: Reply #136
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For now, Ronald Poppo, who has lived half his life on Miami’s streets, is without his most basic features.
“The loss of the face is one of the most devastating injuries because in so many ways it defines our identity,’’ said plastic surgeon Chad Perlyn, an assistant professor in the surgery department at Florida International University’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. “He has a long road back, both physically and psychologically.’’
“The human mouth has one of the highest counts of bacteria, and with bites where the skin is punctured, the teeth and saliva carry the bacteria into the wound,’’ said Perlyn, part of the Miami Children’s Hospital plastic surgery team. “The key to his injuries beyond the infections is determining how much tissue damage or loss there is. Damaged tissue can be repaired, but where there is loss, the feature must be reconstructed.”
“Based on the extent of his injuries, he has a really tough road ahead. Facial reconstruction is difficult in the most simplistic case of trying to restore a feature back to the exact form and function,” says Dr. Reza Jarrahy, the co-surgical director of the University of California at Los Angeles Health Systems’ newly launched Face Transplantation program. “And prior to just a few years ago, the idea of a face transplant was far-fetched, a Hollywood type notion.’’
“The patient will probably have to have several trips to have the wounds washed out so that doctors can assess the viability of the tissue. They have to temporarily cover the exposed eye and cover any other open wounds, with a dressing,’’ said Rodriguez, chief of Plastic Surgery at R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. “Then they have to start making decisions about the best way to reconstruct the patient’s face.’’