PROSPECT: Man feels 'reborn' after recent liver transplant

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PROSPECT: Man feels 'reborn' after recent liver transplant

Tuesday, December 26, 2006 BY EMILY BEAVER

Copyright © 2006 Republican-American PROSPECT -- For much of this past year, life had been a waiting game for Don Pranulis.

But that changed in October, when the Prospect resident learned he would receive the liver transplant he had waited for since January.

"Before the transplant, I was sick all the time and I had nothing to look forward to," said Pranulis. "This was like being reborn."

Pranulis, 50, had the viral liver disease hepatitis C, which caused him to develop cirrhosis of the liver. He needed a liver transplant and was placed on a list along with 17,776 other people in the United States waiting for livers, said Debera Palmeri, who served as Pranulis's liver transplant coordinator at Hartford Hospital.

He spent his days visiting doctors and trying to stay busy by reading or watching movies at home. But like many people with cirrhosis, Pranulis suffered from an increased level of ammonia in his blood, which made reading or watching television difficult, Palmeri said.

"There's nothing you really can do while you're waiting," Pranulis said. "You don't know when the time might come that you're going to get the transplant, or even if you will get it."

Around 11 p.m. on Oct. 18, his wife Cianciola-Pranulis received a phone call from Hartford Hospital: Don was going to receive a liver.

"I said, 'They're ready for you to have a liver,' and Don thought I was joking," Cianciola-Pranulis said.

The couple went immediately to Hartford Hospital, where Don Pranulis underwent a successful seven hours of surgery.

A long chain of events led Pranulis to need the transplant. In 1980, while riding his motorcycle in Waterbury, Pranulis was struck by a drunken driver. The accident severely damaged his leg, which eventually had to be amputated because of an infection.

In 1997, Pranulis learned he had contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion during his amputation.

The hepatitis C caused him to develop the cirrhosis, a scarring of the liver that prevents the organ from functioning normally.

Cirrhosis is generally irreversible, said Dr. Andre Sofair, an internist at Waterbury Hospital who treated his liver problems.

Pranulis' case of cirrhosis made his abdomen swell and caused him to experience confusion, Sofair said. People who suffer these conditions usually have a 50 percent chance of surviving for five years, which can make a liver transplant necessary, Sofair said.

After his transplant, the couple learned he had received the liver of a 13-year-old who died of a stroke.

Cianciola-Pranulis, who is 49, said it was difficult to think that a family had lost their daughter, even though she was elated that her husband received the liver transplant.

"They call it (the liver) the donor, they call it the cadaver," Cianciola-Pranulis said. "But I call it the donor person. It was a young lady who saved seven lives by donating her organs."

The couple does not know the identity of the teen, but they are writing a letter to thank her family. An organ recipient is only told information like the donor's age or the state of the donor's health, Palmeri said. The family of an organ donor sets parameters for contact with the recipient, which usually begins with letters forwarded through organ banks, Palmeri said.

Pranulis returned home two weeks after the surgery. He takes a regiment of medications to make sure his body doesn't reject his new liver and routinely visits his doctors, who make sure Pranulis doesn't develop infections.

Cianciola-Pranulis said she hopes to use her husband's experience to raise awareness about the need for organ donors and would like to hold a "donor day" in Prospect.

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