Woman eager to heal after face surgery
02:58 PM CDT on Saturday, October 21, 2006
Editor's note: This story originally appeared in the March 14, 2005, edition of The Dallas Morning News.
In as little as a month, Carolyn Thomas will be able to walk into a restaurant, order a meal and eat it.
Maybe in a year, she will be able to do it without attracting any notice or having anybody stare. She is on her way toward blessed ordinariness.
"I won't be able to have a steak right off," she said, "but it'll sure be better than what I've been having."
Carolyn, the survivor of a domestic-violence shooting that left her face a blasted ruin, still keeps her features covered with bandages.
But underneath, doctors have built the scaffolding for her new face.
Last month, in a surgery that lasted nearly 10 hours, a surgical team built her a lower jaw sculpted from a segment of bone from her leg.
Doctors said they are on their way to meeting what they call their "10-foot standard." Up close, scarring will be visible, but to the casual observer standing 10 feet away, the Waco woman will look no different from anyone else.
Carolyn first shared her story with The Dallas Morning News last September, when she was facing a life of permanent disfigurement. With her face shattered by a gunshot that destroyed her right eye, nose and lower jaw, she was unable to eat and required a trachea tube to breathe and to speak clearly.
Since then, she has been accepted into a medical program that will cover the enormous costs of reconstructive surgery. Carolyn's Houston-based surgical team is providing its services at no charge, and The Methodist Hospital in Houston is covering the costs of her hospitalization and care.
Along the way, she has become something of a celebrity. Shot point-blank by an ex-boyfriend in December 2003, police say, she spent more than a year with her ruined face hidden beneath a heavy bandage. Her story appeared most recently on Larry King Live, and she is the subject of an upcoming Discovery Channel documentary.
But she characteristically plays down the public aspect of her ordeal.
"I don't want to get too caught up in being on TV and stuff like that," she said. "But I do want to keep helping women be aware of domestic violence. That's the important thing."
February's surgery was just the first step, but it was a big one, said Dr. Eugene Alford, who leads the five surgeons Carolyn calls the "Dream Team."
"Her first surgery went better than we expected," Dr. Alford said, outlining the remarkable progress the team made: The surgeons built Carolyn a new lower jaw; they built her a new eye socket and created the framework for a new cheek and mouth.
By month's end, she may be able to start eating soft foods again. Since the shooting, she has had to feed herself liquid formula through a stomach tube. Doctors say she will probably need physical therapy to relearn how to swallow.
Carolyn has had to be tough. Her ex-boyfriend, Terrence Dewayne Kelly, is awaiting trial on a capital murder charge in the death of her mother, Janice Reeves, who was killed in the same rampage that disfigured Carolyn. She will be the state's primary witness.
Dr. Alford said the first and only time he saw a crack in Carolyn's optimism was in the days after her surgery.
"She was safe in the hospital. She was well-cared for," he said. "It was a comfortable place for her to be because she didn't feel different. When it came time for her to leave the hospital, she said, 'I don't want to go.' "
But when friends reminded her that her pets – a female pit-bull mix named Tanjy and twin parakeets named Stan and Jan – were waiting for her in Waco, Carolyn was overcome with homesickness and renewed strength.
"That's when she said, 'OK, I've got to go home,' " Dr. Alford said, laughing. "She is very, very strong."
Carolyn said when the homesickness caught up with her, it was worse than the pain of the surgery.
"Oh, man, I was so happy to get back home," she said last week from her Waco apartment after the marathon surgery and a week's hospital recovery. "I wanted to be back with my dog and my birds."
"She's just such a fighter," said Dione Jackson, a domestic-violence counselor who has also become Carolyn's affectionate friend. "I thought maybe she needed some time to rest after she got home, but she's already out and about."
Carolyn is scheduled to return to Houston for her second major surgery, expected in May. Doctors still aren't certain how many follow-up procedures will be required, but they expect their work to be complete within a year.
She's ready, and she's determined. Carolyn Thomas' resilience remains nothing short of miraculous. She said she relies on faith, friends and the support of countless well-wishers who have followed her story.
"I just want people to know that I'm coming along fine, and I want to thank them for their messages," Carolyn said. "You don't know how uplifting it is to hear those encouraging words."
E-mail jfloyd@dallasnews.com