Hands transplant patient recovering

PITTSBURGH | Valarie Kepner was so excited after learning last fall that doctors might be able give her husband new hands that she called the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center without telling him first.

Jeff Kepner, 57, lost his hands and feet a decade ago to sepsis that developed from a strep infection. On Monday, he became the first person to undergo a double hand transplant in the United States and the second person to undergo a hand transplant through the hospital’s new hand transplant program.

“I really wanted him to regain his independence,” Mrs. Kepner said in an interview Thursday at UPMC.

“I think he’s really excited,” she said. “Just being able to look down and kind of see the fingertips, you know, which really is the only thing that’s showing at this point, I think is really neat for him. He kind of keeps looking down and looking at them. It’s kind of cool.”

Mr. Kepner, of Augusta, Ga., isn’t able to move his new hands or feel them yet; that will depend on how long it takes for his nerves to grow, a process that could take months.

“This whole surgery just opens up just the possibilities for him to just to be able regain his independence in so many ways and to go back … to cook and to do the things he could do in the past,” she said.

After retiring from the Air Force, where he was the slow-pitch softball team’s pitcher, he went to school to become a pastry chef, she said. He has a 13-year-old daughter and looks forward to playing with her. He also has two adult children and two grandsons.

“He keeps teasing our choir director that he wants to play a piano duet with her,” Mrs. Kepner said. “Even if he could only play ‘Chopsticks,’ she would be thrilled.”

Over the years, he adapted to his prosthetics - he can drive and works at a book store - but he relied on his wife to shower and help dress him.

When she first told him about the possibility of surgery, “He was kind of like, ‘OK, but you know, I can do all these things with my prosthetics. I’ve already learned how to do all this. I’m not sure this is something I would want to do.’ ”

Meetings with UPMC doctors allayed his concerns, she said.

UPMC developed a protocol that aims to reduce the amount of toxic anti-rejection medications that must be taken so that the hands are not rejected, said Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, chief of plastic surgery. The medications can increase the risk for diabetes, infections and other complications.

So Mr. Kepner decided to go ahead with the procedure, also with the hope that the procedure may become more commonplace and help others, Mrs. Kepner said.

The Kepners flew to Pittsburgh on Sunday after the hands became available. According to the Center for Organ Recovery and Education, the donor was a 23-year-old Pennsylvania man and the father of a 1-year-old son.

Dr. Lee said 10 hand surgeons divided into four teams for the procedure: two prepared Mr. Kepner’s forearms and two prepared the donor’s hands. The teams worked simultaneously, and the surgery took just less than nine hours.

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