Surgeon: Left without a face, victims all say 'I've become a monster'

[Baitball Blogger]

Sometime soon, a physician is likely to sit at the bedside of Ronald Poppo and explain to the homeless Miami man what much of the world already knows — that his face is gone and he will never again look the way he thinks he does.

Yet even as the 65-year-old learns what happened to him 12 days ago when a deranged stranger gouged out one of his eyes and chewed off his forehead, nose, an eyelid and his lips, Poppo may struggle to grasp the implications of the attack, experts say.

"What they all say is, 'I've become a monster,'" said Daniel Alam, a plastic surgeon at Cleveland Clinic who helped transplant a face onto a Connecticut woman mauled by a pet chimpanzee in 2009. "Because without a face, others cannot see them as human. The world cannot relate to them ever again. That's where depression comes in. And he will be a victim of that."

Poppo is likely several weeks from a full understanding of what has happened, say doctors. Although none of the physicians surveyed are involved in Poppo's care, they have all dealt with similar cases.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/fl-ronald-poppo-bad-news-20120605,0,6125762.story