When Ioan Tomsa boards a plane tomorrow to return home to Romania, he will hold his head up.
The 20-year-old is excited to show his new look to his family, his friends and his whole village after a surgery that reconstructed his eye socket and cheekbone. For the first time since he was 7 years old, Tomsa feels like he has nothing to hide.
"He's more content about everything. He feels like a new person," said Victoria Eliescu, translating for Tomsa.
Tomsa has spent four months in America, staying with two families in Windham, N.H. He received dental work, facial reconstruction and a glass eye from volunteer specialists.
Tomsa said he returns home filled with the memories and love from people he has met.
"He will take with him all the love he received from all the people who were around him. He will keep it in his heart," Eliescu translated for Tomsa. "He was very impressed that everybody loved him and helped him."
Tomsa had surgery in Romania when he was 7 years old to remove a benign tumor pressing against his brain, a procedure that left his face with a caved-in look on the right side where his eye was missing. Romanian pediatrician Rodica Lupu helped set up Tomsa's trip to America after meeting him at a health clinic in Romania.
George Chatson, a plastic surgeon who led the team of doctors who worked with Tomsa, said he is more amazed at the transformation in Tomsa as a person than he is the physical change of Tomsa's face.
"He is confident, smiling and happy," Chatson said. "It is really wonderful to see."
Dentists Jonathan Schrader and Ian Glick of North Andover; Gary Rogers, a craniofacial specialist at Children's Hospital in Boston; Richard Mirra, an oral-maxillofacial surgeon; and Erin Donaldson, a clinical anaplastologist, all volunteered their services. Caritas Holy Family donated the use of an operating room.
Chatson said Tomsa will return in November for some "fine-tuning" after his body has gotten used to the changes. Chatson said after such a complex reconstruction, there is always more work that can be done.
Elaine Yourtee, who hosted Tomsa for the last three months, said the whole family is looking forward to when he will return in six months. She said he goes back to Romania with a bigger idea of the world after his time here. They even fit in a trip to Florida to go to Disney World and the Kennedy Space Center.
She said he is also returning with gifts for his family, including enough money to replace the cow the family had to sell to pay for the trip Tomsa took from his village of Rozavlea to Bucharest to get a visa to travel to the United States. Yourtee said she is trying to raise enough money so his family can buy another work horse because they only have one on their farm.
Tomsa can now eat normally after 13 years of having trouble opening his mouth. He no longer puts his hand over his face and turns away from people. Tomsa has also talked about finishing high school and becoming a taxi driver.
"I feel like he not only has a new face, he has a new way of looking at life," Yourtee said.
