Brenda Jensen said the operation was a great success which had saved her life. Thirteen days after the surgery she said her first words, "Good morning, I want to go home." It is the first time a voice box and windpipe   have been transplanted at the same time and only the second time a voice box has ever been transplanted. Ms. Jensen, 52, had been unable to speak on her own since her voice box was damaged during surgery in 1999. Since then, she has been unable to taste or smell food, could breathe only through a hole in her windpipe and could talk only with the help of an electronic voice box. In October, surgeons at the University of California Davis Medical Centre removed the voice box and 6cm of the windpipe from a donor body. In an 18-hour operation, this was transplanted into Ms. Jensen's throat and the team connected it to her blood supply and nerves  . Professor Martin Birchall from University College London, who was part of the surgery team, said: "We've learned that we can repair nerves to make even very complex organs function again. It'll open the door to better facial transplants and will be extremely important as tissue engineering   develops. " A voice box transplant might be life changing, but it is not life saving. Everyone who receives a transplant must take drugs to control the immune system  for the rest of their lives. These drugs can reduce life expectancy, so they are normally set aside for life saving procedures. One of the reasons Ms. Jensen was a suitable person for this transplant was that she was already taking immune controlling drugs after a kidney-pancreas   transplant four years ago. Professor Peter Belafsky, part of the surgical team, said, "Brenda was an exceptional   candidate for the transplant because she was highly motivated. Anyone who's met Brenda knows that she is a strong and determined person with a great outlook on life in spite of the many physical challenges she's faced over her lifetime. Ms. Jensen was a suitable person for this transplant because she was   _  .
strong-willed and prepared experienced and brave seriously ill and motivated determined and realistic