Graham, L. et al.
Would-be facial transplant recipient Kristyn Lavoie shocked her doctors after she rejected the face of recently-deceased donor Karen Wright, a 49-year-old five out of ten.
“We presented her a photo the family had given us,” said Dr. Ramona Estevez, head of reconstructive surgery at St. Antonio Hospital in Columbus, OH, “then she placed her finger on the woman’s cheek and slowly swiped to the left.”
Lavoie lost part of her face after going to an overseas spa for a “piranha rinse” to minimize a pore on her nose. Tragically, the piranhas were unlicensed and failed to sterilize their instruments, causing a flesh-eating infection to spread down Lavoie’s face. But Lavoie maintains she still has standards.
“It’s like, no thank you, I can’t do adult acne,” said Lavoie, 22, “I’ll just roll the dice on the next available face.” She admits that she wasn’t aware of how few facial donations become available every year.
Lavoie, who is an avid fan of computer game The Sims, thought the process would be more customizable. “I thought I could just pick and choose which lips I wanted,” said Lavoie, who’s own lips are an amorphous goo but otherwise “pretty easy to contour.”
Lavoie has since relocated to Los Angeles in her quest for a hotter donor.
