Double hand transplant patient out of hospital

Georgia man is learning how to catch a ball, his mother says

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Man receives double hand transplant
July 16: Earlier this year, Jeff Kepner became the first person in the United States to receive a double hand transplant. In a TODAY exclusive, Natalie Morales reports on how this medical miracle is changing his life one day at a time.

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updated 9:51 p.m. ET Sept. 30, 2009

LANCASTER, Pa. - The mother of the nation's first double hand transplant patient says he's out of the hospital and looking forward to returning to his wife and daughter in Georgia.

Doris Schafer told the Intelligencer Journal-Lancaster New Era that her son, Jeff Kepner, visited her over the weekend in Lancaster. She says he plans to return to Augusta, Ga., at the end of this week.

Schafer says Kepner is considerably happier than when she saw him in June at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, about a month after the transplant.

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She says her son still has no feeling in his fingers but is learning how to catch a ball and pick up small items.

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