Jeff Kepner has lived for a decade without his hands or feet.

Now, in the first bilateral hand transplant ever attempted in the United States, surgeons are trying to give Kepner a new lease on life.

"Everything is going along fine," his stepmother, Pat Kepner of Manheim Township, said Monday evening. "We're just waiting for the call."

In 1999, the Lancaster native contracted a rare, drug-resistant strep A infection, which shut down his organs and nearly killed him. He woke from a three-week coma to find his extremities amputated, a radical but ultimately successful attempt by doctors to save Kepner's life.

Kepner, now living in Augusta, Ga., has lived for 10 years with prosthetics. The surgery to replace both hands — being performed by a team of 11 surgeons at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center — could take up to 20 hours to complete.

The procedure began at 8:30 a.m. Monday, Mrs. Kepner said, and 11 hours later the reports from Pittsburgh were good.

"It's a perfect match," she said, "and so far there's no rejection."

Eight double hand transplants have been performed abroad. The first took place in France in 2000.

The biggest concern for doctors is keeping the patients' own immune system from attacking the new grafts. Kepner's procedure will employ a newly developed, two-phase "Pittsburgh Protocol" that uses an immediate course of antibodies to counteract the initial response from the immune system, then a bone-marrow infusion from the donor about a week later to target cells that could reject the hands.

Mrs. Kepner said her stepson's new hands came from a 24-year-old man, who also donated other organs to patients in need.

"We have to thank his family, too," Mrs. Kepner said. "That's a wonderful thing. Everybody should donate."

Born and raised in Lancaster, Kepner attended McCaskey High School. He quit school during his senior year in 1970 and joined the military.

He retired as a noncommissioned Air Force officer in 1990 and married his second wife, Valarie, a former Air Force officer, in 1992.

He has worked as a mortician's assistant, bus driver, bookseller and stay-at-home dad. He earned a degree in pastry arts from the Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport but got sick before he could use his culinary skills.

Many members of his extended family — including his father and stepmother, Ellsworth and Pat Kepner; his mother and stepfather, Doris and Robert Schafer; and brothers James and Dan — still live in the Lancaster area.

Mrs. Kepner said her stepson probably will stay in Pittsburgh for three to four months of physical rehabilitation. He can expect a struggle, she said, to gain function of the hands.

"I believe he's pretty optimistic," she said. "They're all very elated."

Earlier this year, Kepner said in an interview that he's looking forward to holding his 13-year-old daughter, Jordon, who was 3 when he became ill.

"She never really knew me other than without my hands and feet," he said then.

"He's very upbeat," Mrs. Kepner said Monday. "He has waited a long time for this … and we believe God is going to help him through it."

E-mail: tknapp@lnpnews.com