Face Transplant Patient to Donor Family: 'I Really Love Them for Being So Thoughtful'

May 7, 2009— -- It was the smell of soap that made Connie Culp realize that her new face was functioning as it should. And it was just the beginning of a second chance at a normal life.

Culp, the first face transplant patient in the United States, said she is forever grateful to her donor's family, "because without them, I wouldn't have a face. "

"So I just want to, frankly, tell them I really love them for being so thoughtful," Culp told Diane Sawyer in an exclusive interview airing Friday on "Good Morning America."

Watch "Good Morning America" Friday at 7 a.m. ET, for Diane Sawyer's exclusive interview with face transplant patient Connie Culp.

That sniff of soap kicked off what would be a new kind of normal for Culp, 46, whose face was destroyed in 2004 when her husband shot her.

"And I realized then I could smell my mouthwashes," she remembered. "I said, 'Wow, I can smell.'"

The gunshot blast smashed her nose, cheek and jaw and took away her ability to see, smell or smile.

But Culp told Sawyer she has no interest in re-living that day.

"I want to be positive. I want to move on. That's what I said," she said. "Everything's going to be great from here on out. It's going to be good."

Culp said she still thinks about how she looked before the shooting.

"I was worried about my weight and everything," she said, lamenting how foolish that seems now. "You're always going to worry about something, you know, your waist, your weight... your hair. It's so funny."

Thomas Culp's failed attempt at a murder-suicide sent him to prison for seven years, but Connie Culp said she chose very early on to forgive him.

"I forgave him the day he did it," she said. "I have to."

Over the next four years, she endured dozens of surgeries. These procedures repaired some of the damage, but Culp remained disfigured and unable to eat or breathe on her own.

Five months ago, she underwent the transplant surgery at the Cleveland Clinic.

When Culp appeared publicly to thank the doctors who performed the surgery, the occasion was an emotional one.

"Well, I guess I'm the one you came to see today," said Culp said at a Tuesday press conference at the Cleveland Clinic. "While I know you all want to focus on me, I think it's more important you focus on the donor family that made it so I could have this Christmas present, I guess I should say."

The 22-hour surgery, which took place over two days, garnered widespread media attention shortly after it was completed. The operation was the world's fourth foray into face transplantation surgery.