Has Isabelle Dinoire accepted her new face? 'It's too difficult to explain,' she said. She takes out old photos and, shocked at the difference, tells herself that she has simply aged.

"The scars have considerably healed. The doctors are confident. In addition, I have recovered total feeling," Isabelle Dinoire told the newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche.

The 38-year-old mother of two last spoke publicly in February when she held a lengthy news conference along with medical personnel in the northern town of Amiens where the Nov. 27 operation took place.

During the 15 hours of surgery, a team of doctors replaced a gaping hole from a dog mauling with a partial face that included a new nose, mouth and chin.

Improved Speech

"Each day that passes, I think, above all, of the donor and her family whom I cannot thank enough," she told the newspaper. "We must not forget that today, thanks to them, I have become visible again."

Dinoire noted that her speaking has improved. During the news conference in February her words, stuck in a still-frozen new mouth, were often difficult to understand.

Today, "I still have a little problem of mobility, symmetry as the doctors say." She said the real difficulty was pronouncing sounds that use the lips, such as the "b" or "p" sounds. She nevertheless is able to speak comprehensibly.

Before the transplant, Dinoire's lipless gums and teeth were permanently exposed, and most of her nose was missing, torn off by her pet Labrador who disfigured her as she lay knocked out from drugs she took to forget a trying week. She wore a surgical mask in public to avoid frightening people.

Today, Dinoire says, she still only leaves her apartment if accompanied and has not replaced the mirrors she removed from her home after the accident.

The journey to full recovery is far from over for Dinoire, who spoke with the newspaper in a small room at the Amiens teaching hospital.

Getting to Know Herself

Each week, she visits the Amiens hospital for a battery of tests, re-education sessions and visits with a psychologist. Each month, she must travel to a hospital in Lyon, in southeast France, where she spent weeks after the operation receiving an anti-rejection treatment so her body would accept the new tissue. She is given more tests and her treatment is adjusted, now down from 20 pills daily to 10, she said.

In addition, several times a day she must examine a small patch of skin from the donor on her stomach, a "sentinel ... that should sound the alarm if something goes wrong," she said. She also has to do the same with her face, examining it in a magnifying mirror -- the only mirror now in her home.

However, the hardest apart appears to be getting to know herself again. Has she accepted her new face? "It's too difficult to explain," she told the paper. She takes out old photos and, shocked at the difference, tells herself that she has simply aged, she said.