00:00 This is Joe. He fell in love with Jessica.
00:09 I survived 8% burns on my body. I was the first successful face and double hand transplant
00:14 in the world.
00:15 I read Joe's story. I was inspired. I knew I liked him more than just a friend.
00:20 But although the couple have found happiness with each other, many people do not believe
00:25 their relationship can be legitimate.
00:28 People say I look like Chucky.
00:30 People don't think our relationship is real.
00:33 Attention seeking, doing this for clout. You don't love him, you love the attention you
00:37 get for being with him.
00:38 This guy said just end it.
00:42 I was leaving a night shift job. I was driving home from work and I fell asleep at the wheel.
00:49 I hit a curb and my car flipped a couple of times. I caught on fire. I woke up three and
00:55 a half months later from a coma in the hospital.
00:59 The burns I had were 80% of my whole body.
01:02 Third degree burns. I went through like 20, 21 procedures. Most of them were skin grafts.
01:10 I was the first successful face and double hand transplant in the world.
01:16 Joe and I met on Instagram. I read about his story while working as a nurse. I was working
01:21 on a transplant floor, so I was very familiar with all that was going on in the world of
01:25 transplant. I read Joe's story and I was inspired and I wanted to know more.
01:31 I wasn't really looking to date at that time. I was still going out with my friends. I was
01:35 still social in a way, but I wasn't looking for love.
01:39 She followed me on Instagram first and then I DMed her about our dog saying I liked her
01:43 dog because we had the same type of breed.
01:45 Joe and I bonded over growing up with Boston Terriers. We both had one growing up and then
01:50 we both currently have one.
01:52 We really just bonded over them and just started talking every day and didn't stop talking.
01:58 I actually never got any hate in public before. I don't know, because I like intimidating
02:02 a person. I'm big and stuff like that, but online, almost every day, people like pick
02:07 at me.
02:08 People don't say it or do anything in public because that's just how people are. They're
02:13 scared. It's easy to be a bully when you don't have a picture up or your name on, but people
02:19 will say pretty mean things about us as a couple, me as a person, Joe as a person.
02:26 I'm a gold digger. I'm attention seeking, doing this for clout. He's rich. He must have
02:33 money. Someone said, "No, for real, because this is no way to live," saying, implying
02:39 that Joe's life isn't worth living.
02:42 You did this for attention. You don't love him. You love the attention you get for being
02:45 with him.
02:47 Matt was a very public person. She looks like a mom. She's a poster kid on social media.
02:54 I think that's interesting when people are that public online and that cool as well.
03:01 This guy said, "Just end it." I would have f*cked myself. For me, that's insane because
03:07 people do end their life because of stuff like that. Good thing Joe is strong. He's
03:14 never once thought like that.
03:16 One man told Joe to break up with me. Just weird stuff like that.
03:21 People say, "I look like Chucky." It gets boring other than bothering me because I can
03:28 come up with a lot more things to say about myself. It just gets boring after a while,
03:33 the insults.
03:34 Here's a comment that doesn't affect our relationship at all. It does get to her a lot more because
03:39 they do attack her more because she's a girl. It's a lot easier to attack a girl than it
03:43 is a guy.
03:45 I could show you some reply videos that I've made to nasty comments.
03:50 Comments like this are entertaining. This person is either an adult that is jealous,
03:55 that doesn't have love like Joe and I do. Thank you again and have a good day, okay?
04:00 So even though we get bad comments on social media, we still get some positive ones. The
04:04 positive definitely outweighs the negative.
04:07 "True love. God bless you." People just saying that they're going to watch us on TV.
04:12 "You guys rock. So proud of you."
04:15 I had one comment saying that my story and positivity helped them not commit suicide
04:21 and I thought, "That's pretty cool that my story can do that." I help people that don't
04:25 need to have burns. It keeps me going too.
04:28 We're going to call my friend Alyssa to catch up and to discuss how she felt about Joe when
04:32 we first met. Alyssa is one of my best friends. She's someone that's very close to me. If
04:37 I have something going on, I'll tell her about it. She knew about Joe from the start.
04:41 Hey! What's up girl? What's up guys?
04:45 So what did you think about Joe when I first told you about him?
04:48 My first thought was just like, "Okay, I'm protective of my best friend. So who is this
04:52 guy? I got to know everything about him. I got to know what his intentions are." My only
04:56 concern was this is different. You met Joe online, he got in this accident and I was
05:02 just wondering, "Is that what you guys are going to talk about? How is their relationship
05:06 going to be? Is it going to be an issue? Is it going to be not an issue?" Other than that,
05:10 I was just happy that you guys got along really well. You guys seemed to have similar interests.
05:15 The whole Boston Terrier thing, I was like, "Okay, yeah, game over. Let's go." But then
05:20 yeah, just knowing more and more about Joe, he just seemed like a really cool guy. I was
05:23 like, "Okay, I trust this guy with my best friend." He was a little quiet, but now I
05:28 feel like Joe and I have hung out a couple more times. So now we're getting to break
05:32 the ice a little bit more, hang out. So it was great. I love Joe.
05:37 Joe's story was inspiring for so many reasons. I think what most inspired me was when Joe
05:45 said that they asked him, "Why did you want to do the hand transplant?" His first reaction
05:50 was, "I wanted to get back to work." And I thought that was super inspiring that someone
05:54 that young could think that far ahead and not be resentful. So I'm a registered nurse.
06:00 And when I met Joe, I had been working on a transplant floor. Joe was never my patient
06:06 though. A lot of people will assume that at one point Joe was my patient and we started
06:11 dating, but I'm not that kind of nurse. So what I'm doing right now to Joe is called
06:17 lymphatic massage training. Any major surgery is going to result in some swelling and the
06:22 swelling is because you're disrupting the lymphatic system when you're operating on
06:27 someone. So just like blood needs to travel in your body, fluid needs to travel in your
06:31 body. And when they did Joe's surgery, they probably disrupted a lot of that. The point
06:36 is just to kind of help bring the fluid down. I'm not a professional at it. I'm just kind
06:42 of learning as I go. I don't want a massage. Yeah, I think it feels good. I mean, it's
06:49 like a bonding moment too. You know, Joe's very independent. It's not like he can't function
06:54 without me because he can, but I'm just kind of there to help him along the way. I wake
07:00 up at 4 30 in the morning to go to work and when I get home, Joe will have dinner ready.
07:05 He cleans the house. We both help each other and I think that's how every relationship
07:10 should be. The way Jessica helped me, that's my life is she'll open like tight jars for
07:15 me and then pick up little things for me, little small things that add up to big things.
07:20 I think we work well together when we talk about a future. We both want the same things.
07:25 Joe keeps me grounded. It's a good partnership. It's a good, it's a healthy relationship.
07:29 You can't really judge a book by its cover because like we know what we're doing and
07:33 if you let it judge us, you know, they're going to judge us no matter what. So let it
07:37 let them judge and just keep on going with your own life. Just don't worry about it.
07:41 Our future is going to be pretty exciting. We're taking some steps right now to buying
07:44 a house. Hopefully I can get like another dog. Raising a puppy together. I think that'll
07:49 be pretty fun to see Joe take that authority figure role because he's just a strong person
07:55 and I think we could all learn a lot from Joe.
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