Attacking is probably the wrong word. It's likely frustration and disappointment.
I get the feeling that the patient and his mother can't really grasp what's going on in their lives, and it makes me wonder whether he was chosen because they knew he was going to be a low-impact first trial patient - in the knowledge that if anything went wrong he and his family wouldn't have the faculties (neither intellectually nor financially) to cause trouble.
Maybe I'm projecting, but I recognize this "vagueness" the author describes from certain patients back when I was a med student, it's not really a great sign if you need people to manage their illness. Getting accurate information from them is difficult and compliance is an issue - just as it's being described in the article.
Yeah, even the picture at the beginning is unflattering, so that I was confused when the patient's face was described as youthful and attractive. It really is, in a picture later with his girlfriend on the street (IMO), but that first picture doesn't look as good.
Richard's doctor, and therefore the media, have portrayed the face transplant as an absolute good--a "miracle" story. This writer is showing that things are not so clearly good.
Richard's family had problems before the transplant; they still have problems afterward. Before the transplant, Richard was apparently working and living with his girlfriend; now after the transplant he is not working and is living at home. He's not supposed to drink; but he does, heavily. His mom is possessive to the point of violence (against his old girlfriend). They live in the middle of nowhere and are bored.
Everyone's lives are being warped by the power of "the miracle story" of the face transplant. Richard gets to feel famous. His mom gets to have him at home, all to herself. The doctors get to feel like heroes, and the media gets a "feel-good" medical story. But to keep all that going they have to hide, change, or lose other parts of who they are.
I would draw a parallel with the many famous stories of poor people who win the lottery but go broke in a few years. What seems like an absolute good ("we're rich!") in fact is a powerful force that distorts all their habits, relationships, dreams, fears, etc.
At the end of the story implies that Richard has a chance to escape the warping, by finding someone who loves him for who he is, not what he represents. His desire to escape is illustrated by his dismissal of his rash. But in the end the story can't be escaped, and he ends up back with the doctors and his mom once again.
