Date: Fri 25-Dec-1998
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.