Yaphank man gives gift of life by giving up part of liver

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Yaphank man gives gift of life by giving up part of liver

BY HILARY JOHNSONSTAFF WRITERMarch 4, 2005 La Lumia believes in karma.If the 25-year-old hadn't moved back to his mother's house in Yaphank from upstate Oneida after his relationship with his fiancee ended, he might not have been around to save a boyhood friend's mother.

"I felt like it was fate," he said. If he hadn't returned, "I wouldn't have known that Neil's mom was sick."On Jan. 20, La Lumia gave 65 percent of his liver, a regenerative organ, to Neil Garrett's mother, Donna, 53, of Ronkonkoma, who was diagnosed with terminal cirrhosis from hepatitis C a year and a half ago.The operation at NYU Medical Center lasted 10 1/2 hours. Both are home and recovering.In a liver transplant operation, not only must blood types match, but arteries in the liver must align. La Lumia's blood type of O negative provides a universal match, but his arteries matching Garrett's was "like a miracle," Garrett said.Doctors told La Lumia he had a "1 in 10,000 chance" of matching, he said. Neil Garrett, 26, also of Ronkonkoma, had been tested but didn't match.But La Lumia said, "I knew I would be a match."La Lumia, who moved back to Long Island last March, heard about Donna Garrett's illness almost by accident. Neil Garrett hadn't mentioned it, but he overheard him telling someone else, and he decided to help.Donna Garrett was stunned. "At first, you don't believe it," she said. But then, she said, "I talked with him, and he said, 'If I can see you this summer planting your beautiful flowers, it will all be worth it.'"Donna Garrett was sick, her daughter, Leigh Bonacum of Ronkonkoma, explained, but not sick enough to receive a liver from a deceased organ donor. As her condition worsened she would have moved up the list of people waiting for a transplant, but there was no guarantee she would ever have received a liver.According to the American Liver Foundation, there are more than 17,000 people waiting for a liver in the United States.The testing and evaluation process for a potential live donor is rigorous.The Garrett family was careful never to put any pressure on La Lumia. Bonacum said, "We never wanted to ask Vinnie, 'How did the tests go?' We would have understood if he decided not to do it."But La Lumia took on the task, sometimes juggling as many as four appointments for physical and psychological tests in Manhattan in one day. "They really put him through the wringer," Bonacum said, but "he never missed an appointment."Asked at NYU as part of the testing process why he wanted to donate part of his liver, La Lumia said he replied, "Because the good outweighed the bad. I had something that could make someone live. I couldn't sit there and let her pass away."If La Lumia's family had anything to say, he wouldn't have done it.Ginger La Lumia, his mother, said she told him "there was great risk, and he would be in great discomfort. He'd never had surgery. He had no frame of reference. But he was adamant. I had no choice but to support him."Now, she said, "There aren't even any words to express how proud I am of him."She said it will take five to six months for his liver to almost completely regenerate.His godmother, Marilou Graham of Eastport, choking up on the phone, said, "He's grown so much in the past year."Graham said La Lumia was close to his father, Louis, who died of lung cancer at age 42, when was 7. The loss was tough on the boy and his brother, Rocky, now 22. "It took its toll," their mother said.Bonacum wrote him a letter to thank him for what he had done, La Lumia said. "She wrote, 'When your dad was sick - imagine if a stranger came along who had the power to make him live. That's what you've given us.'"

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