Date: Fri 18-Dec-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Rich-Rauner-heart-transplant

Full Text:

Rich Rauner Finally Gets A Heart

BY KAAREN VALENTA

Richard Rauner's seven-month wait for a new heart ended at 3:30 am on

Thursday, December 17, when the 58-year-old Newtown former postal worker went

into surgery at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia.

The operation was expected to take about nine hours, a little longer than the

average heart transplant because Mr Rauner had undergone previous heart

surgeries. The operation was still underway as The Bee went to press this

week.

Mr Rauner and other patients in the seventh floor heart transplant unit at the

hospital learned about 11 pm on Wednesday that a compatible heart had been

donated and was on its way by helicopter.

"It was a go," said Bill Booth, a patient from Bridgewater, N.J., who has been

waiting for a heart transplant at Temple since October 11. Mr Booth and other

patients were packing up Mr Rauner's personal items which would be moved to a

room on 7-East, the opposite end of the floor, where patients recovering from

heart transplant surgery are placed after they are released from the

post-operative intensive care unit.

"The reports are that he is doing well (in surgery) -- with the grace of God

he will be fine," Mr Booth said. "We had a birthday party for him before he

went in. It's a tradition. We have a prayer circle and then we sing Happy

Birthday because it is a new life."

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

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

Church Hill Road in Sandy Hook. The blood drive was scheduled from 1:45 to

6:45 pm.

Southbury resident Barbara Nelson, who has been organizing the fund-raising

and other donations for Mr Rauner, said she got a call from the hospital at 5

am to tell her he had gone into surgery.

"I'm so excited -- it's just like it's an omen because so many other things

are happening such as the blood drive today," she said. "I know the prayers

are working."

Mr Rauner, who retired on disability from the Newtown post office in March,

entered Temple University Hospital on May 6. He expected to be home for the

Labor Day Parade and his 58th birthday in September but a drop in organ

donation rates nationwide and the lack of a compatible type O heart stretched

his wait to more than seven months.

"I feel that I'm here maybe for a purpose, that I was put here for a reason,"

Mr Rauner said in a telephone interview last week. "I ...see the frightened

patients who come in, the confusion and trouble in their faces and the faces

of their families. I try to encourage them as best as I can. They need the

support."

"Being here as taught me a lot about life, its ups and downs, its miracles and

disappointments," he said. "It's up to the good Lord to decide how we wind up.

But whatever happens in the end, I win."

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

Parkenson Building, 7th Floor, 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.