One of the most popular entries in this blog is a previous entry on face transplants. I was thinking of writing a follow-up strory when an article describing the first patient to receive a face transplant recently came out.

"A fine, circular scar was visible where the face tissue was attached in the 15-hour operation on Nov. 27 in Amiens. Dinoire's speech was difficult to understand, and she appeared to still have great difficulty moving or even closing her mouth, which often hung open. But she said she was regaining sensation. "Since the day of my operation, I have a face like everyone else," Dinoire said. "A door to the future is opening." "I can open my mouth and eat. I feel my lips, my nose and my mouth," she said. During the news conference, while one of her surgeons was speaking, she lifted a cup to her lips and appeared to drink.

Read the rest of the patient's personal account from International Herald Tribune.

Photo:Isabelle Dinoire, the woman who received the world's first partial face transplant with part of a nose, chin and lips on Nov. 27, 2005, addresses reporters during her first appearance at a press conference since the November surgery at the Amiens Hospital, northern France. Credit: Associated Press via Chron.com