Brenda Coulter's Life Changing Surgery- Thanks to Sunnybrook Hospitals Cranial Prosthetics Unit

Mission Unstoppable

Meet Brenda Coulter, and the Anaplastologist David Morrison, one of Sunnybrooks Craniofacial Prosthetics Unit (CPU) team whose new groundbreaking procedure is changing lives in a GOOD Way. Since that fateful day when half of Brenda's face was sheared off when a piece of metal that crashed through her windshield while driving on an Ontario highway, Brenda has undergone 12 surgeries. A former hair colourist, Brenda lost one eye in the accident and most of her sight in the other. Currently, Brenda glues on a prosthetic that more often than not, goes on a bit haphazardly as she is legally blind. Brenda was the first patient at Sunnybrook – and in the world – where surgeons used a state-of-the-art navigation system to help guide the placement of two 3-millimetre screws. Sunnybrook’s CPU team is made up of two anaplastologists (specialists trained in the art and science of creating custom prosthetic devices), two head and neck surgeons, a coordinator and a maxillofacial prosthodontist (a highly specialized dentist who is an expert in the prosthetic rehabilitation of patients with facial differences due to trauma, cancer or congenital malformation). When all is said and done, Brenda's new prothsetic will be held on magnetically and now she is waiting for the healing to take place so part 2- the modelling, painting and fitting is next.