left arm, bones, plates, nerves. once the right and the left look like they re in good shape, then we remove the face.e. we ve been working for 23 hours it feels like we ve been working for 23 minutes.s. there s so many things going on in your mind. you re not tired. sean: you re not tired. no, you re not tired, high on adrian little. we re going, been going for a couple days, keep going, going going. now i take the parents to see cc their child for the first time. always incredibly emotional for everyone, including myself. sean: sure. when the parents see their son, in the case of joe, it s hard to contain theou tears, se.
keep in mind that we have to amputate an arm on joe which was somewhat functioning not perfect, and then put on a new arm. so that s high risk. you literally have three separate teams operating. right. sean: one on each hand and one on his face simultaneously. simultaneously. we go to the simulation lab then to the operating room and practice all this. sean: you find out you might have the practice match, you actually get on an airplane and fly down. here you re talking to a family that just lost a loved one and you re asking them, you know, would they consider this. and they were. uh-huh. sean: how did that go? these families. are remarkable, sean. you would be surprised. you know, to ask someone in the most difficult time of their life, they ve lost their loved one, their son or daughter, askk them we d like them to donate their face or their hands. sean: to save somebody else s
and he says i want to do it. and then she says she wants to do it also. then he asks me. i says no. why not? i said, well, i want him safe. he s in the room. he s in the room, y he s watchig tv. sean: you don t want to lose your son. right.. he s safe. so the doctor asked him and says joe how do you feel about that. he said i don t want to be in aa room, i don t want to be in the house, i want to get my job back, i want to work, i want to go down the shore. all right, i m on board now. sean: in october of 2019, joe was approved as a candidate and was placed on the transplant waiting list. where we take the skin from that s going to be close to the linear incision, okay, and you have a feeding tube tracheostomy and skin graft. the day that we do the operation he s going to have his own eyesight.
it s so much more extensive.nt sure. sean: because of the progress you made with people like patrick, you were able to do it more quickly. yep. sean: fascinating. the tricky part was the arms, something we had no experience with, but we ve been in this scenario. similar scenario, different territory. we rehearsed plenty of times. the arms are a little tricky because we have a lot of tissue. we have to attach 24 tendons three major nerves, six major blood vessels. m but we ve created these sterile tags, so when we cut a nerve, we have to tag everything. it looks like the inside of a telephone wire, but everything is appropriate. in joe s case he s right hand dominate. it was important for him to have a normal right hand so he can work. work. the right hand from the donor room. sean: he had had the top of his fingers cut off. right, his fingers were basically here and they were like webs. they weren t functional.an
you just hit the nail on the head. we walked out of there, got to the parking lot. i stopped, i said, what did they just say in there? what are they talking about? hand transplant, face transplant. i said, where s this going, you know? but he was always independent had his own place, right out of high school got his own place got a job, had his own apartment, got his car. first time face transplant double hand transplant, you re his parents, but you also heard something else. he could die. sean: he may not survive that operation. that s all i heard. sean: that s all you heard. he says yes real fast. she says, well, if he wants to do it, then i m with him. sean: and you said no. if god didn t take him on the table. sean: were you a no? a i was a no. dr. rodriguez asked, joe, you know, you might not make it. it s a dangerous operation.