Joseph S Gruss

Suzy Karuzzo _{on Google}

Aug 31st, 2012

The beautiful woman I had once been was gone, along with 80 percent of my facial bones. My ability to speak, to eat without a gastrointestinal tube, the hearing in one ear and the sight in one eye all gone.
After seven years of violence, in 2004 my husband held a gun beneath my jaw and pulled the trigger. He was convicted of attempted manslaughter and served three years in prison.
I got life.
Dr. Gruss is an amazing combination of surgical wisdom, compassion, and courage. There are few craniofacial problems that he will not tackle and fewer yet that he cannot correct,
That day at Seattle's Harborview Medical Center, when I confronted my image for the first time, I couldn't imagine walking down the street without horrifying people. The bullet had split my face into two halves.
I wanted to die. But Dr. Joseph Gruss believed my face and life could be rebuilt
Gruss, chief of craniofacial, plastic and reconstructive surgery at Seattle Children's hospital, had long established himself as one of medicine's most esteemed craniofacial surgeons, one whose reputation drew patients from all over the world. He pioneered methods of facial reconstruction to repair damage from gunshot wounds and correct cleft palates in children.
As I lay in Harborview's intensive-care unit, Gruss immediately began reconstructive surgery on my face before the scar tissue had a chance to shrink.
Then he encouraged me to go back to school and see a psychologist to help me cope. "He reminded me that God had made me perfect,'