Connie Culp Is The Nation's First Face Transplant Recipient!

I cannot believe that Connie Culp's husband only did 7 years for shooting her in the face!He should have gotten a lot more time than that because he dramatically altered the course of her life forever.The wounds that Connie Culp sustained from the shooting permanently disfigured her.Not to mention the trauma she suffered.Little kids called her a monster because they were so horrified by Connie Culp's face.

But,Connie Culp has a message for others.She says,"Don't judge people who don't look the same as you do. Because you never know. One day it might be all taken away."

Here's more on this story from Yahoo:

"When Connie Culp heard a little kid call her a monster because of the shotgun blast that left her face horribly disfigured, she pulled out her driver's license to show the child what she used to look like. Years later, as the nation's first face transplant recipient, she's stepped forward to show the rest of the world what she looks like now.

Her expressions are still a bit wooden, but she can talk, smile, smell and taste her food again. Her speech is at times a little tough to understand. Her face is bloated and squarish. Her skin droops in big folds that doctors plan to pare away as her circulation improves and her nerves grow, animating her new muscles.

But Culp had nothing but praise for those who made her new face possible.

"I guess I'm the one you came to see today," the 46-year-old Ohio woman said at a news conference at the Cleveland Clinic, where the groundbreaking operation was performed. But "I think it's more important that you focus on the donor family that made it so I could have this person's face."

Until Tuesday, Culp's identity and how she came to be disfigured were a secret.

Culp's husband, Thomas, shot her in 2004, then turned the gun on himself. He went to prison for seven years. His wife was left clinging to life. The blast shattered her nose, cheeks, the roof of her mouth and an eye. Hundreds of fragments of shotgun pellet and bone splinters were embedded in her face. She needed a tube into her windpipe to breathe. Only her upper eyelids, forehead, lower lip and chin were left.

A plastic surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Risal Djohan, got a look at her injuries two months later. "He told me he didn't think, he wasn't sure, if he could fix me, but he'd try," Culp recalled.

She endured 30 operations to try to fix her face. Doctors took parts of her ribs to make cheekbones and fashioned an upper jaw from one of her leg bones. She had countless skin grafts from her thighs. Still, she was left unable to eat solid food, breathe on her own, or smell."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.

My Husband's Hometown Is Shrinking!

My husband is from Flint,Michigan.Most of his family members have had a difficult time obtaining steady employment.The jobs are so sparse that it's tough to make ends meet!Only a few of his relatives have the money that it takes to relocate & they have done just that.For the others,the situation is becoming more & more desperate.It's so sad.

But,they are not alone.The whole city has been in a state of serious decline for years.As the population continues to shrink,the amount of abandoned,dilapidated houses have been on the rise.So,the city of Flint has come up with a plan.

They want to shrink my husband's hometown by demolishing entire neighborhoods and condensing the existing population into the areas that they deem to be "viable."Here's more on the efforts to save Flint from The NY Times:

"Dozens of proposals have been floated over the years to slow this city’s endless decline. Now another idea is gaining support: speed it up.

Instead of waiting for houses to become abandoned and then pulling them down, local leaders are talking about demolishing entire blocks and even whole neighborhoods.

The population would be condensed into a few viable areas. So would stores and services. A city built to manufacture cars would be returned in large measure to the forest primeval.

“Decline in Flint is like gravity, a fact of life,” said Dan Kildee, the Genesee County treasurer and chief spokesman for the movement to shrink Flint. “We need to control it instead of letting it control us.”

The recession in Flint, as in many old-line manufacturing cities, is quickly making a bad situation worse. Firefighters and police officers are being laid off as the city struggles with a $15 million budget deficit. Many public schools are likely to be closed.

“A lot of people remember the past, when we were a successful city that others looked to as a model, and they hope. But you can’t base government policy on hope,” said Jim Ananich, president of the Flint City Council. “We have to do something drastic.”(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.

A Pregnant Woman Has Become The First American To Die From The Swine Flu!

A pregnant woman from Texas has become the first American to die from the swine flu.Here's more from the WebMd:

"The U.S. recorded it's second U.S. swine-flu death and the first of an American -- a Texas woman living near the Mexico border -- soon after the CDC said schools shouldn't close when students come down with H1N1 swine flu -- and schools closed because of swine flu may reopen.

The CDC has repeatedly predicted that the U.S. would see more H1N1 swine flu deaths and hospitalization. Yet the CDC's official guidance for schools reflects a cautious easing of concern over the H1N1 swine flu pandemic."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.