If you’ve ever felt like life is meaningless to you because of life’s curveballs thrown at you cruelly repeatedly, read the story of Chrissy Steltz, the girl who lost two-thirds of her face in a horrific gunshot accident when she was just 16 years old.
Chrissy Steltz was a popular sophomore in high school and living a full life. She was beautiful and was a straight-A student with big dreams but all of that came to a grinding halt in March 1999. The day that Chrissy and her boyfriend threw a party at their apartment was the day that her life changed forever. A drunk friend who found a stolen shotgun under their couch began fooling around with it. Chrissy told her friend to put the gun down before he killed someone but the friend told her that it wasn’t loaded. Before Chrissy knew it, her friend accidentally fired the gun at her at point-blank and caused horrendous injuries to her face and a large part of her skull. The gunshot tore off two-thirds of Chrissy’s facial features, leaving a gaping hole in her face where her eyes, nose and cheeks used to be.
Image credit – ABC News
The blast destroyed both Chrissy’s eyes, removed her nose and the supporting mid-facial structures. Till today, Chrissy still lives with pellets from the shotgun blast lodged so deeply in her brain that they can never be removed. The surgeon who operated on Chrissy had many times commented that he had not seen anything quite so severe where the patient survived.
Chrissy was put into a drug-induced coma and was hospitalized for six weeks. Every day in the hospital was a struggle and no one knew if she could make it to the next day. There was just no confirmation of how she would be when she woke up and there was a possibility that she would wake up a vegetable.
When Chrissy regained consciousness, her boyfriend broke the devastating news to her. He told Chrissy that she would never be able to see again. She also lost her olfaction (sense of smell), has a little sense of taste and lost some of her hearing.
Chrissy eventually broke off with her boyfriend after the accident. She was however strong enough mentally and physically to not wallow in self-pity. She felt that she had a choice – to sit back and have a pity party or figure out what to do next and go about doing it.
For the next 11 years, Chrissy was under the excellent care of a maxillofacial surgeon, Dr. Eric Dierks. She also went to a school for the blind to learn Braille and how to live all over again as a blind person. Her time at the school for the blind was also one of the best as she met her new love (who also turned blind at 16 from an illness) and they had a baby boy together.
In those 11 years before she got a facial prosthesis, Chrissy wore a black sleeping mask all day. Her doctors decided that she would be better suited for a facial prosthesis instead of receiving a face transplant because her eye sockets and sinus cavities were gone.
Dr. Larry Over and Dr. David Trainer, Chrissy’s maxillofacial prosthodontists used photos of Chrissy at age 16 and aged 11 years in order to design her facial prosthesis. A lot of science and art went into creating the prosthesis. It came complete with eye shadow, eyeliner and mascara baked right into the mask.
When Chrissy’s insurer persistently refused her claim for a facial prosthesis, considering it an aesthetic procedure, her doctors worked for free to create her prosthetic face that looked amazingly natural. Chrissy’s insurance only paid for the hospital costs of her surgery, a dental company donated the implants, and a kind anonymous private donor helped defray other costs.
Skin grafts, removal of damaged tissues, bones from her right leg, and dental implants with magnets on the tips all went into the preparation of Chrissy’s face so that the facial prosthesis could be easily attached and detached. Doctors also opened a breathing passage to Chrissy’s nasal cavity and rebuilt her jaw. The new jaw still prevents her from opening her mouth wide enough to eat a sandwich.
When the time came for Chrissy to show her 1-year-old toddler son her new face, the little boy who had never seen his mom without a black sleeping shade on was barely interested when she unveiled her new face to him, and he immediately turned back to play. This meant that the facial prosthesis was a success! Chrissy’s mom burst into tears as she saw her daughter’s face for the first time after more than 10 years.
Image credit – dailymail.co.uk
Though Chrissy lived without a face for more than a decade, her life has been miraculous and nothing short of amazing. She graduated from Franklin High on time with her class in 2001 with straight-As, found her life partner and now has a family of her own. She has even done tandem biking, ice skating, white water rafting, and miniature golfing – things that even some regular abled people would not do.
Image credit – dailymail.co.uk
Chrissy could have chosen to wallow in self-pity and live a life filled with misery, hatred and resentment. But she chose to soldier on and live life to the fullest. She told fifth-graders during a visit to her baby sister’s school that just because she had a real bad accident doesn’t mean that life is over.
Health Freak Mommy is a content writer under Headliner by Newswav, a programme where content creators get to tell their unique stories through articles and at the same time monetize their content within the Newswav app.
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