carman tarlton is proudly showing off her new face, seven months after surgery here you are. >> herell, my key to that success is not focusing on negative things >> reporter: her first face transplant lasted seven years but, slowly, her body began to reject it. >> when my first face transplant failed, i basically went back to looking disfigured i didn't have eyelids anymore. i lost my lips >> reporter: was it a hard decision to decide to go through it again >> no. so i had said to the doctor, if i'm a candidate, i want to know the chance. >> reporter: this doctor has been carman's plastic surgeo since she was air lifted to brigham and women's hospital 14 years ago. since her immune system was less sensitive, the second historic face transplant she was better candidate for the second transplant there was still concerns how complicated is it the second time >> the second time is a little worse in some ways, because we're dealing with a lot of unknowns again. >> reporter: a team of 40 performed the complex surgery. it took 20 hours over 2 days >> we were incredibly lucky and found a don