A 19-year-old lady has been able to flash a grin just a couple of months after she has undergone a delicate transplant surgery. Caitlin Cowen had lost her ability to smile in a surgery that removed a brain tumor in 2008.

After doctors removed the tumor deep-seated within her brain, Cowen had suffered from right-side facial paralysis and had no power over the left-side of her body. The brain surgery had also caused her double vision and difficulty of walking.

Todd Cowen, Caitlin’s father who is also a physician that rehabilitates patients with injuries in the brain, believed that there was a way to help her. He researched through literature and reached out to medical experts who might help her daughter.

Eventually, Mr. Cowen found Dr. Tessa Hadlock, a facial nerve surgeon from Boston. She has been dealing with cases of partial facial paralysis for several years and has been giving back smiles to people who had suffered from the condition. Most of them were kids who had acquired the condition through a defect in birth, accident, or surgical procedure such as Caitlin’s.

Dr. Hadlock performed a two-part procedure on Caitlin in 2009. A thigh muscle has been transplanted to Caitlin’s cheek, where it was attached to blood vessels and nerves there. Nerve connections took few months to grow in the transplanted muscle.

By May, Caitlin had seen the first signs of her fresh smile and since October, she has been able to show a full smile every time she wants. Caitlin became the queen of Mardi gras dance last March and flashed her smile the entire night.

The results of Caitlin’s surgery can be seen in the Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery. Reportedly, Hadlock already had 15 successful surgeries out of 17 young patients.