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Date: Fri 25-Dec-1998

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Date: Fri 25-Dec-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Rauner-heart-transplant

Full Text:

This Christmas Rich Rauner Gets The Greatest Gift

(with photo)

BY KAAREN VALENTA

Richard Rauner received the best Christmas present anyone could wish for this

year: the gift of life.

One week before Christmas, the 58-year-old Sandy Hook resident's seven-month

wait for a heart transplant ended when a matching heart was found through the

United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) Program. After nine hours of

transplant surgery at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia on December

17, Mr Rauner spent four days in the cardiac intensive care unit. On Tuesday

he was moved back to the seventh floor, to the A wing, where heart transplant

patients usually remain for about two weeks before being sent home.

"Our man looks beautiful," said Barbara Nelson, Mr Rauner's longtime friend

and organizer of fund-raising efforts on his behalf. "When I arrived on

Saturday, he was still sleeping. He woke up and had the most gorgeous look on

his face. The sun was shining in the window on his face, he laughed a little

-- it was like he was being reborn."

He was still medicated, didn't speak much and dozed off and on, she said.

"Every time he woke up he would smile and look around and seem amazed. It was

like somewhere in his mind he was talking with God and marveling that he was

still here."

Ms Nelson said that when she spoke to him on Tuesday, after he had been moved

back to the seventh floor, he said he was still tired but would be getting up

to walk and to take a shower. "His doctors told him they are pleased with his

progress," she said.

Mr Rauner and other patients in the heart transplant unit at the hospital

learned about 11 pm on December 16 that a compatible heart had been donated

and was on its way by helicopter. Surgery began about 3:30 am.

On the same day that Mr Rauner was getting his new heart, Newtown was

conducting a dedicated blood drive for him at his church, the United Methodist

Church on Church Hill Road in Sandy Hook. The five-hour drive took in 69 units

of blood.

In a taped message which Mr Rauner sent to The Bee a week before the surgery,

he said there are so many people he wants to thank "that there isn't enough

room in the newspaper."

"There are so many things to say about the wonderful people of Newtown who

came out and donated blood. In July, when I was in my eighth week at Temple

University Hospital, they donated 123 units on my behalf. Some people wrote me

afterwards that they had never donated blood before. I want to say thank you

on behalf of everyone who might need that blood."

Mr Rauner said Don and Diane Bates at The Drug Center worked to make the need

for organ donations known and also sent him several surprise packages to help

lift his spirits.

"I must have received well over a thousand cards, photos and letters (from

well-wishers)," Mr Rauner said. "You can't imagine how it helps to know that

so many people are thinking of me and rooting for me. Many of the other

patients (in the transplant center) don't have that kind of support from their

hometown."

Mr Rauner said Barbara Nelson took care of his house and property all during

his hospitalization and called him every night.

"To have a person like Barbara pass through your life is definitely a gift

from God," he said. "I'd put Barbara in the top one -- not the top ten -- for

all she has done for other people during her life."

Mr Rauner said that when he could not sleep, he often stood at the

seventh-floor window that overlooked the hospital's helicopter pad and

wondered when it would be his turn to receive a donor heart.

"If you never had religion, you certainly develop a closeness to God here on

the seventh floor," he said. "I know that I am in his hands, and that's where

I leave it, and I'm very comfortable with it.

"I want to tell everyone to have a great day, make it count, give that smile

away," he said. "Do something for someone else today. Make that call, reach

out to someone who is lonely. You'll never know exactly when that hand will

reach out to you when you need it someday."

A naturally gregarious man, during the months that he has been at Temple Rich

Rauner has worked hard to keep up the spirits of the other patients. Several

died during or after their heart transplant surgery, another was left blind

and paralyzed by a stroke that occurred during the operation.

The patients in the 20-bed unit include not only older adults with histories

of heart failure but also a 16-year-old girl who has a seven-month-old baby

and a 27-year-old emergency medical technician whose heart was irreparably

damaged by a virus. Two other transplants were performed at the hospital after

Rich Rauner's and both of those patients are doing well, she said.

"I think Richie has renewed their faith that the wait (for a heart) is worth

it," Barbara Nelson said. "The transplant is one of God's miracles. I have no

doubt that every angel God has is sitting in that hospital."

Cards and letters may be sent to Mr Rauner at Temple University Hospital,

Parkenson Building -- Room 738A, Broad and Ontario Streets, Philadelphia, PA

19140.

Contributions can be sent to the Richard Rauner Fund, Box 111, Newtown 06470,

or to the fund in care of Mary Herbert at Fleet Bank, 6 Queen Street, Newtown

06470.

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