Years after I walk through the front doors of The Clinic, a woman will undergo an historic operation: She’ll receive a new face. The procedure is controversial, risky, and the last straw. Her face is damaged beyond any conventional means of repair. She has no nose, no palate. There is an opening in her windpipe that allows her to breathe, to eat.
A car crash? An extreme beating? We’ll never know. We only know that her face was so crucified that she was taunted on the street, that small children fled in fear.
What is life when you can’t leave the house? When you can’t walk down the street or do any number of errands, when you must fear appearing in public? When you are singed by cameras, eyes, mirrors? What do you do then?
She risks her life. The surgery will take nearly an entire day and require a hefty medical team. The buildup to the procedure will take years of planning, constant consultations, reality checks, warnings.
After surgery, she will take antirejection drugs as long as she lives. Rejection, the reason we dive from so many cliffs.
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