Follow-Up on Carmen

A few days ago I wrote about a book I recently finished reading called Overcome: Burns, Blinded and Blessed about a woman named Carmen who was burned over 80% of her body in 2007 when her estranged husband poured industrial-strength lye over her in a vicious attack.

In my post I also mentioned Carmen's recent face transplant. Carmen was recently interviewed by Dr. Travis Stork from The Doctors and that interview aired yesterday. I've been eagerly looking forward to this interview ever since I saw the preview for it a few weeks ago, especially since I just finished Carmen's book, and feel like I know so much about her.

I was very interested in seeing what Carmen's new face looks like. All I have two say is that technology is amazing! Who would believe that a face can be transplanted?! Carmen's new face looks amazing. It still isn't "normal" looking and you can tell that she's been through something traumatic, but it's a major improvement on her old face and is much more comfortable for her. The scarred skin on her old face/neck was very tight and caused her a lot of pain. Carmen now has more flexibility/movement with the face transplant.

I was so excited to hear that Carmen has found love. A few years ago she decided to start taking piano lessons and she and her teacher, Sheldon, fell in love. I'm so happy for her, and I know that if Carmen can find love, then there's still hope for me. It's just nice to know that there are good men out there like Sheldon who are able to look past disfigurement/disabilities to see the beauty on the inside.

Here's a picture showing what Carmen looked like before she was burned, what she looked like after and what she looks like now with her "new" face:

The morning after I published my post about Carmen's book I received an email from a woman that works at the company that published Carmen's book. She thanked me for writing such a nice review and told me that she had shared my review/blog with Carmen. I thought that that was really neat and I was elated when a few hours later Carmen herself emailed me and thanked me for reading her book and writing about it on my blog. It was my pleasure! I have no idea how they found the post I made about Carmen's book (and so quickly), but I'm glad they did. Carmen is a remarkable person and a true inspiration.