Date: Fri 09-Oct-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Rauner-Zierzow-LeDuc-health

Full Text:

Transplant Patient's Long Wait Brings Heartfelt Memories To A Newtown Woman

(with cut)

BY KAAREN VALENTA

When Louise Leduc Zierzow reads about Richard Rauner in The Bee , or joins the

congregation in prayer for him on Sunday, memories of her brother's similar

fight for life come flooding back.

Mr Rauner's experiences as he waits for a life-saving heart transplant at

Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia are much like those of Mrs

Zierzow's brother, Albert L. LeDuc of Miami, Fla., who underwent a successful

heart transplant in May 1996.

"I get very emotional when I talk about it," Mrs Zierzow admits. "It was so

incredible. My brother is alive and well, operating his own business, all

because of the transplant."

Mr LeDuc considered himself to be in excellent health at age 60. He'd long had

a healthy lifestyle, paying close attention to his diet and running usually

five kilometers (3.1 miles) at least every other day. He did not have high

blood pressure, high cholesterol or any other known risk. But something

suspicious turned up in 1995 when he tried to donate blood at a Red Cross

blood center, a condition that was confirmed by his physician and a

cardiologist. He had cardiomyopathy, a weakness of the heart muscle itself.

This condition caused his heart to behave erratically, skipping beats and

adding extra beats, almost at random.

Like Mr Rauner, 57, the former Newtown postal clerk who has been at Temple

since May 4, Mr LeDuc has tried to share information about his experiences and

the need for organ donors. (Mr LeDuc's story is available in its full context

on the Internet at http://pages.prodigy.net/aleduc/heart.htm)

The average wait to get a heart transplant at Jackson Memorial

Hospital/University of Miami Medical Center was nine months when Mr LeDuc was

placed on the transplant list.

"My brother was very fortunate to get a heart within a month," Mrs Zierzow

said. "Of course, that means that someone else has to die. So it is an

emotional experience for everyone involved."

Mr Leduc said he was lucky to have a blood type (A positive) that is

relatively common in Florida, and not to be a large man so he could also use

the heart of a woman or a young person. Rich Rauner has the rarer type 0. A

person with type O can donate an organ to persons with type O, A, B, or AB,

but can only receive one from an O.

"There are many other factors as well," Mrs Zierzow said. "To be chosen for

the transplant program you have to be committed to following the rigorous

post-operative program and have a good support system of family or friends to

be sure you will be able to get to follow-up appointments. Rich has a lot of

things going for him. He has a wonderful attitude. I understand that his

health has actually improved since he has been in the hospital, and he has so

many people in Newtown who care what happens to him and will do whatever they

can to help."

One of the major changes after a transplant is a dramatic increase in the

amount of medication that must be taken, including drugs to weaken the immune

system to prevent the body from rejecting the new organ. Many of the drugs

must be taken for the recipient's lifetime. Many recipients develop high

cholesterol, despite a healthy diet, and many become diabetic.

The only way of reliably determining if rejection of the new heart is

occurring is by means of a biopsy. Mr LeDuc had 17 biopsies in the 18 months,

each involving a probe threaded through an artery to take a snip out of the

heart; he will have to have one done each year for the rest of his life. Rich

Rauner faces the same regime.

In the months following a transplant, recipients are extremely vulnerable to

illness and must be very cautious about being in crowds or in close physical

contact with other adults and children. But right now, Rich Rauner is enjoying

the visits which he has had from friends and acquaintances in Newtown.

"Julie Stern and her husband stopped by last week with their son, who lives in

Philadelphia," Mr Rauner said. "Their son's wife had just had a baby and they

were here to visit their new grandchild. So they decided to come see me, too.

Although Mr Rauner is confined to the hospital, he is ambulatory. He wears a

fanny pack that contains a pump which feeds the drug Dobulamine through a tube

and a shunt directly into his heart.

"Five months have gone by since I arrived here but I feel good -- I don't let

myself get depressed," he said. "Three patients got hearts in the past three

weeks, so you just never know. My room is right under the flight path where

the helicopters come in to land when they bring hearts for a transplant."

There are now 18 patients waiting for a heart transplant at Temple; 16 of them

are men. Mr Rauner has been there longer than all but two of the patients.

Organ Donor Spokesman

As the result of his successful surgery, Mr LeDuc has become a spokesman for

the South Florida Transplant Foundation.

"In an ideal world, everyone who needed a new heart would get one," he said.

"But as it is, the triage decisions that any transplant center's evaluation

team has to consider are almost literally heartbreaking. Donor awareness must

increase. The second step is for the potential donor to be sure that his or

her family recognizes the commitment that has been made. I have seen a poster

that advises, `You are not a donor until your family is aware of your wishes.'

In most states, the family can override the donor's wishes at the time of

death. And there are cases where the potential recipient has died while the

family dithered."

By most estimates, at least twice the number of heart patients could be saved

with transplants, if more hearts were available and in a more timely fashion,

Mr LeDuc said. "I noticed that I signed my donor card nearly 20 years before I

became a transplant recipient, so my commitment is not because of a conversion

to the idea based on my own precarious situation. Major religions and sects

agree with me that donorship is one of the highest representations of our

ability to help our fellow man. It is a selfless act which provides a positive

life change; the donor changes his or her life just by making that honest

resolution -- and another life may be saved later. As a T-shirt editorializes:

`Life is Wonderful -- Pass it On: Be an Organ Donor.'"

"I am certainly glad my donor and his family made the decision they did. My

family and I will be always grateful to them."

"It's wonderful that he has a new life," Mrs Zierzow said. "I hope Rich will

get the same opportunity."