500th Liver Transplant Patient at Loma Linda University Medical Center Gets Ready to go Home

Francisco Munoz was taken to Loma Linda University Medical Center several weeks ago barely clinging to life and in dire need of a liver transplant. Today, the 52-year-old Inland Empire local is undergoing rehabilitation and preparing to go home, after becoming the 500th patient to receive a liver transplant at the world-renowned medical center. “I am very happy to have received a liver and I look forward to being home again,” said Munoz, a farm worker. “My wish is to go back home and be able to spend time with my children.” A lifetime of alcohol use, starting when he was a teen, and a diagnosis of Hepatitis C, is blamed for the deterioration of Munoz’s liver. He had stopped drinking alcohol and has been sober for a while now, but a toll had already been taken on his liver. “If I had known how much suffering I would have because of alcohol, I never would have started,” he said. Munoz had been on a liver transplant list, and received a liver transplant on March 1, after being taken to the hospital in very serious condition. He was on life support and in a coma for weeks. “He would not have made it otherwise,” said Dr. Michael de Vera, his liver transplant surgeon and director of the Loma Linda University Medical Center Transplantation Institute. “It truly is teamwork -- a multi-disciplinary team effort on the part of the different professionals and departments within the hospital,” Dr. de Vera said. He said the first liver transplant at the hospital was done in 1993, and the program has since matured and improved over the years. Munoz, who is undergoing rehabilitation from the transplant, hopes to return home to his three children this week.