In May 2017, Stubblefield underwent a 31-hour transplant after she found a match in a 31-year-old donor Adrea Schneider. (Source: National Geographic/YouTube) In May 2017, Stubblefield underwent a 31-hour transplant after she found a match in a 31-year-old donor Adrea Schneider. (Source: National Geographic/YouTube) A 21-year-old Katie Stubblefield is now the youngest person to have received a face transplant in the US. Stubblefield was only 18 when she attempted suicide with a gun back in 2014. Though she survived the gunshot, the wound disfigured a large portion of her face, reported The Independent. Stubblefield underwent over 20 reconstruction surgeries and several psychological evaluations over the past four years before the facial transplant in May last year. Her story was first shared in National Geographic’s September cover story after which a video of Stubblefield’s recovery and new life was also released. Watch the video here: (Viewers discretion is advised). “I’m able to touch my face now, and it feels amazing,” she said in an interview with National Geographic. In May 2017, Stubblefield underwent a 31-hour transplant after she found a match in a 31-year-old donor Adrea Schneider. According to a Time report, Dr Brian Gastman, a plastic surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic along with his team worked to attach Schneider’s face to Stubblefield. She received a new forehead, cheeks, mouth and lips, nose, eye sockets, upper and lower eyelids, upper jaw and as well as a portion of the lower jaw, along with teeth and facial muscles. According to the report, Stubblefield’s surgery was conducted at the Cleveland Clinic with the help of virtual reality, 3D printing and several surgeons to make it successful. The surgery expenses were paid by a grant from the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, that aim to create new transplant operation for the military. Stubblefield is now one of the 40 people in the entire world to have received a face transplant.<doc-sep>Three years after Katie Stubblefield’s face was severely disfigured, she got a second chance — and a new face. Martin Schoeller / Via National Geographic After losing most of her face in 2014, Katie Stubblefield has become the youngest person in the world to receive a full face transplant at age 21. The complex procedure was completed last May by a team of surgeons at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, after Katie had undergone more than a dozen surgeries to reconstruct her face. Now, more than a year later, Katie is recovering well and regaining the ability to speak, eat, and show emotion — things that were impossible due to the trauma caused by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The 21-year-old is now using her experience to help others and become an advocate for suicide prevention. Her journey is featured in the cover story of National Geographic’s September issue, which is titled "The Story of a Face," and a full-length National Geographic documentary. Maggie Steber / Via National Geographic In 2014, Katie was a senior in high school in Oxford, Mississippi, where her family relocated after moving from Florida to Kentucky during her sophomore year, according to National Geographic. In addition to the two major moves, Katie was dealing with other obstacles. She suffered from chronic gastrointestinal problems and needed her gallbladder removed after having her appendix taken out the previous year. Several months after the gallbladder surgery, her mother, Alesia, abruptly lost her job. Then in March she went through a painful breakup and attempted suicide. Katie survived, but experienced damage to her nose and sinuses, forehead, mouth and jaw, and her eyesight was damaged. According to National Geographic, Katie has no memory of the event, and only learned about it from her parents in the hospital. “I never thought of doing that ever before, and so on hearing about it, I just didn’t know how to handle it,” she told the magazine. “I felt so guilty that I had put my family through such pain. I felt horrible.” Warning This image is graphic Tap to reveal Click to reveal Cleveland Clinic Five weeks after the incident, she arrived at the Cleveland Clinic and was put under the care of Dr. Brian Gastman, a plastic surgeon. Katie does not remember most of 2014, a year she had multiple facial reconstruction surgeries, some involving grafting tissues from her legs to cover her wounds. But the facial reconstruction surgeries were not enough to improve Katie’s quality of life. Finally, Gastman and her surgeons considered a full face transplant — a complex procedure that involves the transplantation of facial tissue from a deceased donor onto the face. Katie went through extensive psychiatric and social evaluations to confirm she was a suitable candidate and understood the risks, which include a chance that her immune system will reject the tissue. The transplant was still considered experimental, but Katie chose to undergo the procedure, according to National Geographic. Warning This image is graphic Tap to reveal Click to reveal Lynn Johnson / Via National Geographic In 2016, Katie was listed as a candidate for a face transplant and her doctors began using 3D models to plan the surgery. In May 2017, she was matched with a donor who had died from a drug overdose. The 31-hour face transplant procedure was performed May 4 by a team of doctors led by Gastman. It was the third and most extensive face transplant completed at the Cleveland Clinic, where the first face transplant in the US was performed in 2008. Doctors were able to replace 100% of Katie’s facial tissue. Since the transplant, she has needed several follow-up surgeries, but her ability to swallow, speak, and eat have improved. The first face transplant was performed in France in 2005, and since then approximately 40 face transplants have been performed worldwide. There is no hard number for the success rate, and the risks with facial transplants are still considerable — but there have been major advancements in surgical techniques and drug therapies to control the immune system and prevent rejection. Stephen Travarca / Via Cleveland Clinic The surgeons were unable to restore as much of Katie’s vision as they had hoped, and she has learned Braille. However, her parents told National Geographic they are hopeful about the possibility of an eye transplant in the future. Eventually, Katie hopes to enroll in online college courses and is considering becoming a counselor. She told National Geographic she wants to speak to teenagers about suicide prevention and the value of life. “So many people have helped me; now I want to help other people.”<doc-sep>"Then, she can do all that and become a spokeswoman for so many aspects - for how to be strong in the face of adversity and not to make a singular decision dictate who you are."<doc-sep>After having more than 20 surgeries over four years, Katie Stubblefield finally has a new face. In May of last year, doctors at the Cleveland Clinic helped the then 21-year-old become the world’s 40th face transplant recipient, and the youngest in U.S. history. Today, Stubblefield, whose story was first told in National Geographic’s September cover story, is recovering well — and adjusting to the novel life, identity and reality that come with her new appearance. “I’m starting over in a lot of ways,” Stubblefield says through her parents, Robb and Alesia. (Her speech is still recovering after jaw and tongue surgery last month.) “I feel like I’m a toddler again. I’m having to learn everything all over again.” Dr. Brian Gastman, a plastic surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic who was part of Stubblefield’s care team, says the next chapter of her story will be about embracing this new normal. “As a face transplant patient, you have a new identity. She’s going to influence people in ways she could never have done before. It’s a different outlook,” Gastman says. “I think she can rebuild; that’s what she’s doing.” For a while, rebuilding didn’t look like a guarantee. Stubblefield lost a large portion of her face, and nearly her life, after shooting herself in a 2014 suicide attempt. In the aftermath, the then-teenager underwent surgery after surgery — first to save her life, then to try to repair the damage. At first, Gastman says a face transplant was “sort of pie-in-the-sky,” a distant second priority to Stubblefield’s more pressing medical needs. But eventually, as Stubblefield stabilized, the operation began to look possible. The team knew it would be difficult. Stubblefield’s injuries were extensive. Her youth meant that her immune system was particularly strong, potentially increasing her chances of rejecting a transplant. Her prior suicide attempt raised mental health concerns. And the chances of finding a suitable face donor — who would need to be female and of similar age and complexion — were slim. But after a lengthy evaluation period, which involved “many, many months” of ensuring that Stubblefield understood the risks and demands of the procedure, Gastman and his team pressed forward. “She was just about to start true womanhood: being able to have children, finding a mate, going to college, getting a job, being a homeowner, all those things. She had not had any of that experience. [Not getting a face transplant] would just freeze her in time,” Gastman says. “As a father myself of a daughter who is her age, I felt really strongly that she was an even better candidate because of the potential of a face transplant and what it can do for a young person.” In May 2017, after 14 months of waiting and one false start, doctors found a match in Adrea Schneider, a 31-year-old from Ohio who died of a drug overdose, and whose family opted to donate nearly all of her organs. Over the course of a 31-hour operation, Gastman and his Cleveland Clinic colleagues worked to attach Schneider’s face to Stubblefield’s body. “It’s so important for people to be a donor to help other people out,” Stubblefield says now. “So many people are still waiting for donors; there’s thousands of people that are in need of organs or tissue. People are dying every day because they don’t have a donor.” Six years ago, thanks to a different donor, Richard Norris got a similar second chance. Norris, now 43 and living in Louisiana, had a full facial transplant at the University of Maryland Medical Center in 2012, 15 years after a serious gun accident. After the surgery, he says, his outlook and quality of life changed almost immediately. “For 15 years I walked around having no face, having a surgical mask, living as a recluse. After the transplant, I was able to walk down the sidewalk just like a normal person. That’s a huge change,” Norris says. “The first time I walked outside of the hospital…the first thing I could smell was freshly cut grass. I hadn’t been able to smell for 15 years.” The relief of that return to normal life, Norris says, was enough to overshadow any difficulties of adjusting to his new appearance. “I don’t think I really had an identity crisis, because I lived so long disfigured. You go from looking like a very normal person, to one day you wake up and you’re completely disfigured and you don’t look nothing like you did before,” Norris says. “That’s when the identity crisis really starts. Every time I looked in the mirror, I didn’t see myself. After the transplant, I started to see myself.” Dr. Sheila Jowsey-Gregoire, an associate professor of psychiatry at the Mayo Clinic who has worked with several of the hospital’s face transplant candidates or recipients, says that’s not an uncommon reaction. While patients like Stubblefield and Norris must start over, that’s something they’ve already had to grapple with, Jowsey-Gregoire says. “Often, these patients have facial trauma, and they’ve already gone through that [adjustment] process once before,” Jowsey-Gregoire says. “That’s kind of an example of how resilient people can be, that they can go through such a traumatic experience and be able to adapt to it and carry on.” And while adjusting to a new face in the mirror may breed some self-consciousness, Jowsey-Gregoire says building that resilience is often one of the only significant ways transplant patients’ personalities change after the procedure. (Nonetheless, patients go through extensive post-operative counseling to ease the transition, she says.) “We stay fundamentally who we are, despite whatever happens to the exterior of us. These folks have a core personality that remains the same,” she says. “What differs over time is they often have to build resilience, and they become more resilient in problem-solving and coping and adapting. They still remain the person that they’ve always been.” In Stubblefield’s case, that’s a person dedicated to helping others, and using her experience for good.<doc-sep>
After a 31-hour procedure, Katie Stubblefield emerged from an operation room last year with a new face and new possibilities. Now she's sharing her story with the world. Stubblefield survived a self-inflicted gunshot wound at age 18. Three years later, she became the youngest person to receive a face transplant in United States history. Her surgery was funded by the Department of Defense as part of an initiative to research treatments for soldiers with wounds like the one she survived. A photograph of Stubblefield, taken after her injury and before the transplant, appears on the cover of National Geographic's September issue. "The Story of A Face" shares the journey before and after the young woman's surgery and her hope for the future. "So many people have helped me," Stubblefield, who hopes to speak on suicide prevention, told the magazine. "Now I want to help other people." Before her suicide attempt, as Stubblefield told writer Joanna Connors, she never saw herself as beautiful. After a barrage of hardships — chronic gastrointestinal issues, the loss of her mother's job, a painful breakup — Stubblefield in March 2014 placed her brother's .308-caliber rifle beneath her chin and fired, according to the magazine. She lost her nose and parts of her mouth and forehead, but she survived. In two years, she found herself on a waiting list for a face transplant, CNN reported, and in 2017 a match was found: Stubblefield would receive the face of Adrea Schneider, a 31-year-old organ donor. Specialists at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio transplanted the scalp, forehead, eyelids and nose as well as parts of her cheeks, jaw, muscle, teeth and more, the hospital explained in a report, "effectively replacing 100 percent of the patient’s facial tissue." It was the first total face transplant for the hospital, which became the first in the U.S. to perform a face transplant of any kind 2008. Stubblefield is the 40th known person in the world known to receive a new face, according to National Geographic. The hospital declined to identify Stubblefield after the surgery last year, but released a statement from the transplant recipient. "To call my surgeons, physicians, nurses and caregivers ‘world class’ would be an understatement," she said. "And to my donor and her family — words cannot express the appreciation I have for this incredible gift." Follow Josh Hafner on Twitter: @joshhafner More:Face transplant recipient: 'I bet it all' and won More:Face transplant gives new hope to Mississippi firefighter