[Flumper Barflusterbutt]

AMIENS, France - The Frenchwoman who underwent the world’s first partial face transplant said on Monday she was grateful to now have a face “like everybody else” and wanted to resume a normal life.

Isabelle Dinoire, 38, smiled and laughed awkwardly in her first appearance before reporters since the operation in November, and spoke in slurred and labored tones.

She still has fine scar lines running from her nose down to her jaw, dividing her upper face from the transplanted lower area, and does not seem to be able to close her mouth.

“Since the day of the operation I have had a face like everybody else,” Dinoire told a packed news conference at Amiens hospital in northeastern France.

“I am now able to open my mouth and eat. Recently, I have also been able to feel my lips, my nose, my mouth,” she said, adding that feeling was returning gradually.

Her speech was heavily slurred and difficult to understand, but she explained how she was disfigured by her own dog bite last May and she thanked the family of the donor who gave her new lips, a chin and nose.

A circular scar was still visible where the face tissue was attached in the 15-hour operation on Nov. 27 in Amiens. Dinoire appeared to still have great difficulty moving or even closing her mouth, which often hung open. But she said that she was regaining sensation.

She smiled as she described what she had suffered before surgeons gave her a new nose, lips and chin. During the news conference, while one of her surgeons was speaking, she lifted a cup to her lips and appeared to drink.

“Every day, when I left my house, I had to face up to people’s stares and what they were thinking,” she said. Eating and speaking were difficult.

She said she had been unconscious when the dog bit her, and only realized how badly she was injured only when she tried to smoke a cigarette and could not hold it between her lips.

Her horror at the extent of her injuries last May was followed months later by delight when she first looked in the mirror after her operation and felt no pain in the lower half of her face.

In terms of coloring, the match between her own skin and the graft appeared remarkable.

"I expect to resume a normal life ... I pay homage to the donor's family," Dinoire said. "My operation could help others to live again."

[Bill]

no?

[Duckbutter]

I'm sure smoking is more pleasurable with a top and bottom lip.

[WoolyGoat]

[Bill]

I need a penis implant....when is science gonna be able to help me out?

[quint]

I hear Michael Jackson wants one.

[BIRD33]

If you get head from her is that considered a threesome?

[paybacksare]

She isn't a beauty queen, but I'm sure that the finished product is a hell of a lot better than having a gaping hole in your face.

[Mastermoose]

Isn't there still a chance that her body will reject the skin, making it die?