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CreativityTranscript
00:00I was in the burn unit for about four months, three and a half of those months. I was in a coma.
00:04No, it's not a skin graft. This is someone else's face and hands on me. They had to pass away in
00:10order for me to get it. But I do have skin grafts all over my body. I would say about 20 skin grafts
00:16because I did 20 surgeries for it. I was burned 80% of my body. My fingers just amputated off.
00:22Eyelids are sewn in a certain way so I can still see. But in the long run, I would have went blind.
00:26He was about to start a long and difficult recovery journey.
00:29It took me about half a month to just to start walking again.
00:33After that, I was sent to a rehab facility. I'd say that rehab place took about three months
00:37when it should have took less than a month. They predicted two to three weeks out of it in there
00:42and out walking. I still have my hearing. My eyesight, it was affected a little bit. I can't
00:47see text messages from far away. I didn't break any teeth. I have my tongue. I still have my smell.
00:52No bones are broken, which is pretty surprising since the car flipped.
00:55But what happened to cause such serious damage across his body?
00:58I was leaving my night shift job when I fell asleep at the wheel
01:01and a car wheeled to the side of the rope hitting a curb and a car flipped a couple of times catching
01:06a fire. After my accident, I did not have my original face. I had deep second burns. So my left side of the
01:13face did not grow facial hair. But the right side did, which is kind of awkward. So I shaved it off a lot.
01:18The donor had dirty blonde grayish hair. And so whenever I grow facial hair out, it comes out that color.
01:25I also had my eyelids burnt off and my left ear burnt. I'm 80% burned. So my whole body was bandaged up.
01:32Not a fun time because taking the bandages off in a tank room in the hospital was pretty painful.
01:37Even when you're in the coma, you can still feel the pain. It's just not fun. And then you have the weird dreams about the pain.
01:44I could hear everyone talk to me. They recommended my parents to talk to me when I was in the coma.
01:49And I would just shake my head yes or no. That's the only response I could really do.
01:53He could still feel pain while in the coma.
01:55But when I was in like a tank room where they watched me up and everything, I think that's when I had the most bad parts.
02:01Because your mind just runs wild and you just have these crazy dreams and you think that doctors are bad people.
02:06But it's a very interesting time and it felt pretty quickly for me.
02:10I was testing for the transplant for a solid year, maybe less than that.
02:14So I had a lot of time to think about it and process and everything.
02:18And then my daughter was not close to my age. He was 48.
02:21And at that time, I was 22. It's a pretty big difference.
02:25And he passed away with a stroke.
02:27It was a little rough time, but you know, I pushed through it.
02:29And now I'm here with this, the transplant phase that I'm pretty happy about.
02:33Even though it's kind of red, I'm still puffy. The puffiness logo down over time.
02:38The fluids have to be manually drained out.
02:40The therapist I see only comes around once or twice a year, but it's worth it.
02:44I'm pretty grateful of it.
02:45My liver is affected by it. My kidneys are affected by it.
02:48So I just drink plenty of water to, you know, help balance it out.
02:51I also can't be in extreme weather.
02:54So during the summertime, I put on sunscreen. I have a hat I wear a lot.
02:58He's been forced to give up many of his outdoor hobbies.
03:00I wear sunglasses. I also wear UV-protecting clothing and also UV-protecting gloves like I have on right now.
03:07I can't do a lot of things anymore like I used to back in the day.
03:11I can't do a lot of outdoor activities, which I miss doing.
03:14For example, I can't go jet skiing because there's a lot of sun on me and that will cause rejection.
03:19Also, like water from the bacteria can get in my eyes or mouth or whatever.
03:24And that can cause an infection when I wind up in the hospital.
03:26So now I just do like indoor things and try to find new things, but it's kind of hard to find new hobbies nowadays.
03:32In the wintertime, I just put on a heavy jacket, gloves, and sometimes I wear a mask to protect my face from the wind.
03:39I can get an infection super quickly all because of the medications I'm on.
03:44It takes down my immune system.
03:45One time I had a cut on my neck pretty badly and it was not healing and the sun got on it way too much and got infected.
03:52And then I was in the hospital for a whole month and a half.
03:54So I'd be super careful of infections, pretty clean.
03:58I had antibacterial shampoo and body wash.
04:01I have everything just in case.
04:03People wanted to know if he's still experiencing pain after the transplants.
04:06So I experienced a lot of pain.
04:08I usually run at like a four or five constantly.
04:11Well, that's kind of manageable for me.
04:12But then also different types of pain.
04:15Like the shooting pain, I consider that nerve pain.
04:17And I'll get that from the forearm all the way down to my fingertips.
04:20I can't really take nothing for it.
04:22I just have to deal with it.
04:23So I'm up all night, you know, just trying to massage my hands out the best I can.
04:27Then there's also a burning pain.
04:29I will consider that rejection pain.
04:30And that's when I get admitted a lot when I have the brain pain.
04:33Because like that's when I can't like touch anything or do anything.
04:36I have to get admitted and get a surgery treatment.
04:38But recently I've been doing acupuncture.
04:41And that's been helping me out a lot with pain.
04:44I still get nerve pain.
04:45But the acupuncture helps with the burning pain.
04:47Swelling should usually go down in one to two years.
04:50But it's taking longer than expected.
04:52The reason why it's taking a lot longer than other face transplant people
04:56is because I am 80% burnt.
04:59So my lymphatic drainage system is all messed up.
05:02And that helps the fluid get out of your system.
05:06And let stuff without getting too medical.
05:08And as needed, it's taking its time to come down.
05:11But it is coming down slowly but surely.
05:13And I'm talking like centimeters slowly.
05:16But it does get puffy when I'm on a high dose of steroids.
05:20Which I am right now.
05:21But everything's looking good so far.
05:23So the reason why I have metal in my wrist is to keep my bones intact in the beginning of surgery.
05:28So the plates are there just for extra support now because my bones are re-grown together.
05:33There's also metal in my face.
05:35So when the slang does come down later on, it's not droopy or nothing.
05:38My voice should not change after the accident.
05:40But it is hard for me to say certain words.
05:43I just can't say certain words because my lips don't work that good.
05:46I guess the nerves still need to grow back in a way.
05:49So I just tend to slow down my speech or I practice it a lot.
05:52Like for example, transplant is hard for me to say when I talk fast.
05:56But if I slow down, I can say it correctly.
05:59Does he plan on having any more plastic surgery?
06:01There are no more plastic surgeries planned at all.
06:03The only surgery I have lined up is cardiac surgery.
06:06Any more like big plastic surgeries would just cause more swelling.
06:10And I don't want that at the moment.
06:11I want the sun to go down and it's taking a lot longer than I expected.
06:14But it is what it is.
06:15And I'm just going with the process.
06:16My face and hands do not sweat.
06:18I don't know if the nerves didn't grow back yet or they just nervous sweat.
06:23I really don't know.
06:24But the only thing I do sweat is just the real skin I have left on me.
06:28So 20% of my skin, I have less.
06:31That's the only thing I sweat.
06:32My poor skin does not sweat either.
06:34So I actually produce more sweat, which is pretty gross.
06:36But I'm still not used to it.
06:38I think it's gross.
06:39But like my scalp sweats more.
06:40So it will go down to my face.
06:43So my face looks like it's swelling.
06:45But it's just something I deal with.
06:46I try to stay in the AC so that doesn't happen.
06:49Burns can cause nerve damage.
06:51So people wanted to know how much he can still feel.
06:54I have basically a lot of sensation on my face.
06:57I would say I have the most sensation on my face on people touching.
07:00And then with my hands, I can feel everything.
07:03Except that when I look away, I lose the texture of it, if that makes sense.
07:08I had no nerve damage on my face and my hands.
07:10That's why they can reconnect the nerves pretty goodly, maybe growing back fastly.
07:15But then I would say I have a lot of nerve damage in my left half.
07:18I basically can't lift my foot all the way up, but I can kneel while I couldn't.
07:22So when I was first burned, I was itchy a lot to the point where I would cut open my skin from itching a lot.
07:29And I would just need to put a lot of deep breath lotion on me, basically so I wouldn't cut myself open again.
07:34And then throughout the years, it kind of went away.
07:36Doctors tried pills on me.
07:38Some worked, some didn't work.
07:40But I just didn't want to be on pills.
07:41But throughout the years, it just went away.
07:43How does it feel to have someone else's face?
07:46Does it feel like it's not you in a way?
07:49No, I feel at this point now, it just feels like me.
07:53Maybe when I first woke up, I was a little iffy about it.
07:56But I really wasn't concerned about my looks when I woke up.
07:59I was more really concerned about my hand therapy and my workouts to get back to normal living in a way.
08:08And I understood that my face would be swollen for a while because of my burns and all that stuff.
08:13I learned that during the long run.
08:15But in the beginning, it was just a natural process for the sun to come down.
08:19And it feels like myself now.
08:22Just a different color face with the redness and so on.
08:25After such a severe car accident, it's common for people to be nervous around driving.
08:30Do you get PTSD while driving and do you remember the accident?
08:36And then another part is you have to be supervised while you drive.
08:41No, I don't have PTSD from an accident.
08:43Driving is one of my passions I like to do.
08:46I drive as much as I can.
08:48And I don't remember the accident at all.
08:50I just remember I got for the coma.
08:52And no, I don't be supervised when I drive.
08:55But when I do have a crank shift of car to start, that's a little hard for me sometimes.
09:01My hands hurt in the morning.
09:03But if it's a push button car, I can do it myself and drive alone.
09:07Nothing you guys ask or say to me is rude to me.
09:10We're all curious people and I'm also curious too.
09:13So sometimes your questions actually help me because it gets me thinking.
09:18But anyways, what you guys see in the video with the burn scars, those are the final stage.
09:24I did not wear my burn compressions because I'm 80% burned or like whatever.
09:30I'll just have the bumps.
09:31It doesn't really matter to me.
09:33Some parts of my body are smooth because I laid on them enough, I guess.
09:38I don't know.
09:39But the burns are at the final stages.
09:41But the transplant parts like my face and hands, that's not the final stage.
09:46The swelling will come down eventually.
09:48There is no time frame for it.
09:50Because I am 80% burned, the myelophatic system is messed up.
09:55So that's why the swelling is taking a little bit longer than normal than other people.
09:59But yeah, the burns are final.
10:01But the transplant is a process.
10:02So that's why the swelling is a process.
10:02So that's why the swelling is a process.
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