Katie will live the rest of her life as an experiment in the longevity of transplanted faces. Medical advances come quickly, and even her doctors can't predict what her future holds. Siemionow, with $2.8 million in funding from the military, is researching an alternative to immunosuppressive drugs. She is hoping to find what many scientists call the holy grail -- a chimeric cell, part donor and part recipient, that will encourage the immune system to accept new tissue as its own and make antirejection drugs unnecessary.
凱蒂的余生都將以換臉移植手術病人的身份度過。但由于醫療技術進步越來越快，就連她的醫生也無法預測其未來。西米奧諾從軍方獲得了280萬美元資金支持，正在研究免疫抑制藥物的替代品。她希望找到許多科學家所稱的“圣杯”，即嵌合細胞，它部分是供體部分是受體，這將鼓勵免疫系統接受新的組織壯大自己，使抗排斥藥物變得不再重要。
Fourteen months after the transplant, Katie's doctors had completed the three major revision surgeries. They are also likely to slim her face, reduce scarring, and improve her eyelids. Papay said he's pleased with how Katie has adapted so far to her new face, and with the quality of her new skin. "I'm extremely happy that she has not had any rejections," he told me. "But I'm not happy with her orbits. We'd hoped she'd have better vision. And aesthetically we could do better on how her eyes are positioned."
移植手術14個月后，凱蒂的醫生們完成了三次主要的整形手術。它們還可能使她的臉變瘦，減少疤痕，改善她的眼瞼。帕佩伊說，他很高興凱蒂已經適應了她的新面孔，也很滿意她新皮膚的質量。他表示：“我非常高興她沒有任何排斥反應，但我不滿意她的恢復情況。我們希望她有更好的視力。從美學角度來說，我們可以更好地了解她的眼睛位置?！?/p>
Gastman agreed with Papay. "We all like her nose; her lips are pretty," he told me. "There are things we know are going to get better when we fix them, like the jaw reduction. But some things we can only do so much to improve upon. Her injury may have been the worst injury of any face transplant injury ever. We can't necessarily make all of her muscles move again. Her tongue is not working well because she lost a lot of tongue muscle and nerves."
加斯特曼也同意帕佩伊的觀點，他說：“我們都喜歡她的鼻子，她的嘴唇很漂亮。當我們修復它們的時候，我們知道有些東西會變得更好，比如下巴縮小。但有些事情我們只能竭盡所能來改進。她的傷勢可能是所有面部移植者中最嚴重的。我們不能讓她所有的肌肉再次恢復運動。她的舌頭不太好用，因為她失去了很多舌頭肌肉和神經。”
Katie intends to pick up where she left off, starting with college, online at first, and then maybe a career in counseling. "So many people have helped me; now I want to help other people," she said. She hopes to speak to teenagers about suicide and the value of life. For now, she's focused on her recovery. "I'm not on the other side," she said recently to her mother. "Oh, baby," Alesia replied. "Your story is not over yet."
凱蒂打算繼續她之前的生活，從上大學開始，首先在網上學習，然后可能從事咨詢工作。她說：“很多人幫助了我，現在我想幫助其他人?！彼Ｍ颓嗌倌暾務撟詺⒑蜕鼉r值等話題。目前，她專注于恢復健康。她最近對母親說：“我終于走了過來！”阿萊西亞回復稱：“哦，寶貝，你的故事還沒有結束?！?/p>
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