Boy Who Refused Liver Transplant Drugs Dies : Medicine: Florida 15-year-old draws last breath in his mother’s arms two months after court let him stop taking anti-rejection medication.

He endured two liver transplants for the chance at life, but 15-year-old Benito Agrelo found the anti-rejection drugs made him so sick that the battle just wasn’t worth it.

Benito died at his Coral Springs, Fla., home in his mother’s arms early Saturday, two months after going to court for the right to stop taking the medication.

“Mami, hug,” Benito said just before he died, opening his eyes and raising his arms to his mother, Armanda Agrelo, who had kept a bedside vigil. The two embraced, Benito smiled and took his last breath, his sister said.

“A few day ago, my mom told him that he was going to see Jesus before she did, and that when he sees him to give him a big hug for her,” said Benito’s sister, Ava Senra Agrelo. “That was his hug.”

Benito had fallen into a coma two days before his death and only awoke to say goodby to his mother.

He won the right to stop taking his medication in June, after the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services forcibly hospitalized him for three days--until a judge intervened.

Benito said he couldn’t stand the medicines’ side effects--fierce headaches and irritability--and wanted to die in peace.

Broward Circuit Judge Arthur Birken ruled the boy could go home and could not be forced to take the anti-rejection medications.

His ruling came after a long visit with Benito that included four hours of testimony from doctors who had treated the teen-ager.

Benito said at the time that he had thought about the decision for three months.

“I’m tired of living in pain. I’d rather stay at home and live as close as I can to a natural life,” he said.

Benito received his first new liver when he was 8 and his second in December, 1992, but he decided last summer to cut back on anti-rejection medicine. Last October, he quit taking the medicine altogether.

“I think everything was meant to happen exactly the way it happened,” Ava Senra Agrelo said. “I was raised to believe that everything happens for a reason. I know it through so many different things that have happened through the past few months, through things that Benny said and did.”