Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Today in Health: Liver Transplant

.....In this morning's OC Register (Tom Fuentes stands me up for surgery), which lands with a thump about 5:30 in these parts, Frank Mickadeit reports on a story that some in the SOCCCD family already knew: last Friday, on the National Day of Prayer, Trustee Tom Fuentes received a new liver:
.....A couple of weeks ago, I arranged with Tom Fuentes to reprise our garage-sale experience and attend last weekend's famous all-island rummage sale on Balboa Island. I was getting ready to call him Thursday to finalize our plans when I got an e-mail from his wife, Jolene: Dude had blown me off so he could go get a new liver at UCLA.
.....She wrote: "Well, a miracle happened today, on our National Day of Prayer. We received an unexpected call from UCLA announcing they had a liver for Tom! It seems the liver was designated for two men and the match was not perfect, so they were able to call us and he had a new liver in a matter of hours."
.....Fuentes has been in ICU since the operation, but that's said to be typical, and the liver is functioning.
.....He was diagnosed with liver cancer last year and immediately got himself put on the transplant list. He took chemo treatments, knocked it down a little, but it recently came back more aggressively. The insurance company threatened to stop covering him. Then came the "miracle," as Jolene calls it.
.....I talked to her last night, and she said a sign of Tom's recovery is that he's gone from wanting no visitors to asking for the likes of me. Summoned by the Chairman Emeritus for a bedside audience! I'm going to have to find the appropriately tacky garage sale vase for the flowers.

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's a waste of a perfectly good new liver.

Anonymous said...

garage saling?

Anonymous said...

Our thoughts and prayers are with you, Tom.

Anonymous said...

That was quick! The new liver, I mean.

Anonymous said...

Science, evolutionary science, saves the day.

Anonymous said...

What's with the Tin Man?

Anonymous said...

Don't you remember the Tin Man's song?

Anonymous said...

money always moves one to the top of the list.......

Anonymous said...

There must be someone, somewhere, more worthy of something so precious than this man.

Anonymous said...

Does prayer really affect change?

Anonymous said...

Frank M. of the Reg is a personal friend of the former head of the OC GOP, a la Judith Miller playing footsie with Rummy and Bush and Condy? Clearly we need to invite him to go thrift store shopping with us and with other trade unionists, environmentalists, Democrats, Greens. Sheesh.

Anonymous said...

Maybe the liver will reject him.

torabora said...

What happened to the old liver?








Just askin'.

Anonymous said...

I had it with some fava beans and a nice chianti.

Anonymous said...

the old liver had a conscience and left...........

Anonymous said...

I suppose I could say that Fuentes must have sold his soul to satan to get that miracle (along w/calling in every favor to any GOP buddies who are doctors) for his new liver, but I suppose since he is satan incarnate he couldn't have sold his own soul to himself, so it must have been Ann Coulter, she's close enough (the she-satan) LOL.:-)

Anonymous said...

To May 7 9:20 A.M. I was thinking the exact same thing. Good old Hannibal Lector (sp?). LOL:-)

Anonymous said...

On a more serious side, now that I think about it, it really, really makes me angry at the unfairness of things. My little nephew who hadn't hurt a single soul in his entire short life, (& I'm 99.9% more intelligent than this f*cking rat bastard) dies of Neuroblastoma Cancer 2 wks. just 2 wks shy of his 3rd birthday last Dec., & this horrible excuse for a human gets a new liver & gets to live. Gee, too bad that he (my nephew) didn't have this miracle.

Anonymous said...

That god, he sure is an arbitrary merry prankster, isn't he?

Anonymous said...

How do we go about seeing the rest of the comments please? I don't see a whole lot here, & there is supposedly 19 of them.

Anonymous said...

To the poster @ 10:37 a.m.: Sounds to me like you need some sensitivity training. My nephew was only 3 yrs old & never hurt a person in his entire short life, yet this insipid sanctimoneous rat bastard on this board has harmed more people whether it be the faculty in this district, politically or personally. I certainly don't wish death on anybody, but certainly a child deserves more compassion than this guy. All I'm saying is that too bad there wasn't a miracle for him, or anyone else for that matter at a young age.:-(

Anonymous said...

10:37 here, and sorry to be misinterpreted--it was an attempt at irony. I'm solidly in your corner.

Anonymous said...

Thank you 2:36 p.m. No harm no fowl. I suppose you're right in that it is a really sick sense of irony. I'm serious though when I said that I get absolutey livid about it when I see rat bastards like Fuentes being allowed a saving grace, & children dying who have done absolutely nothing to hurt a living soul in their entire short lives. If there is a hell, there has to be a special place in it for people like Fuentes.:-)

Anonymous said...

To 10:37 a.m.: P.S. Obviously I didn't mean to misinterpret what you said, but I guess this little angel's death is still a bit raw so I didn't pick up that you were being ironic. Once in a while this board also gets some fly by nights who are just assholes, so this is another reason I was reacting.

Anonymous said...

That's ok, thanks, and so sorry for your loss.

Anonymous said...

Thanks. I suppose I could look at it as, what we lost, heaven (or has gained another angel (well, he was this way when he was alive). He's the positive energy all around me (& other people too), where as Fuentes is just another source of vile energy, no better than the toxic fumes coming from a New Jersey sewer. I suppose nothing that I can do about it. It may have just been the very,very unfortunate roll of the dice.:-)

torabora said...

"A considerable percentage of the people we meet on the street are people who are empty inside, that is, thy are actually already dead. It is fortunate for us that we do not see and do not know it. If we knew what a number of people are actually dead and what a number of these dead people GOVERN OUR LIVES, we should go mad with horror."

G. Gurdjieff

like mom said, eat your liver! ;)

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...