A Face That Changed a Life

Susan Whitman Helfgot was in the hospital room with her husband, Joseph, who was near death. His body had rejected the heart transplant he received hours earlier.   ’My emotional reserve was nil, or maybe negative,’ she now recalls. At that low point, in April 2009, she had a conversation she can still repeat word for word.   ’We have a man who needs a face,’ the representative from the organ bank said, trying to prepare Helfgot for what was coming. Joseph Helfgot, in his young sixties with a history of heart disease, had long been a certified organ donor. But the donation of his face was one he hadn’t signed up for.   Susan listened to the details about the would-be transplant recipient, a man burned beyond recognition when he fell onto the Boston subway tracks. Since then the man had been unable to eat normal food or talk on the phone. Sometimes he had to breathe through a tracheostomy tube.   ’Would you want to help him?’ Helfgot heard the representative from the organ bank ask her.   Her answer became a book, ‘The Match’ (Simon & Schuster) which she wrote with William Novak. In it she explains events that led to the first facial transplant ever performed at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. Her late husband’s facial tissue, veins and bone were removed and placed on the severely damaged face of a recipient. The first transplant of its kind in the U.S. took place at the Cleveland Clinic in 2008.   Helfgot will be in Pacific Palisades at a book signing party on October 26 from 7 until 10 p.m. Proceeds from the $50. contribution that serves as a ticket will support the Donate Life Filmmaker’s Project which gives grants for educational documentaries about organ donation.   She never intended to write a book. Helfgot and her husband, who lived in the Palisades with their children, Ben and Jacob, from 1995 to 2002, planned to be anonymous donors with no knowledge of the recipient’s name or background.   But as it turned out, a film crew for ‘Boston Med’ was working on a documentary about Joseph Helfgot’s heart transplant surgery, which has since aired, partly because he was a successful Hollywood movie marketer. He worked on major films including ‘Iron Man’ and ‘The Silence of the Lambs.”   Then, a reporter at the Boston Globe found out about the pioneering face transplant being performed at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and anonymity was no longer an option.   ’Life is about being put in a place and making a choice,’ Helfgot says. ‘I’ve become the face behind the face.’   Helfgot has met the transplant recipient, Jim Maki, whose nose now reminds her of her husband’s. Maki is close in age to Joseph Helfgot, divorced, with a grown daughter. For years he struggled with drug addiction and was living in a halfway house when Helfgot met him.   Once confined to his room to avoid people’s cruel stares and remarks, Maki now joins Helfgot at speaking engagements about their extraordinary experience.   ’Jim has had a rebirth,’ Helfgot says.   For more information about the Oct. 26th book signing event go to http://www.thematchstory.com and click on ‘events.’