Lost hope of living an ordinary life

Patrick always wore a baseball cap and sunglasses, as well as specially designed prosthetics that replaced his ears.

“I had kids. It was just a tough time. I never got a day off from the injury. When you walk out in public, it was daily. And, you know, it’s just so — there’s no way to explain everything,” he said.

“You go to the ball field, you have to prepare yourself for the kid that goes running off screaming.”

For years, Patrick battled pain and staring from people when walking down the street. He was losing all hope of living an ordinary life, and started to think that his disfigured appearance was one he would be cursed with forever.

But as time went by, surgeons developed new methods for face transplants. Finally, in 2005, Isabelle Dinoire became the first-ever person to have a face transplant. Hardison, though, had given up hope of getting the help he desperately wanted.

Then, one day, a friend stumbled across Dr. Eduardo D. Rodriguez, who worked at the NYU Langone Medical Center in New York. Rodriquez had performed a face transplant before, and so the search began to find Patrick a donor.

After a year, Hardison’s search had turned up just two potential donors. The first one was a good match – but the tissue profile was not.