Marine’s Surgery Appears Successful

Melany LeBleu has been at the bedside of her husband, Marine Lance Cpl. Christopher R. LeBleu, since he became comatose last week after suffering acute liver failure.

“There is so much I want to say to him,” she said at a news conference Monday, a day after her husband’s 10-hour liver transplant surgery at Loma Linda University Medical Center. “I don’t know what I’m going to say to him when he wakes.”

Melany LeBleu will probably speak to her husband soon, according to doctors, who said early indications were that the transplant was a success. Although he remains in critical condition, LeBleu’s new liver is functioning well enough that he is expected to regain consciousness soon and recover fully.

“All indications are that he can get back to being the Christopher his family knew,” said Dr. Donald J. Hillebrand, associate medical director of liver transplantation at Loma Linda.

LeBleu, 22, a rifleman who returned in September from duty in northwestern Iraq, was admitted to the hospital Wednesday after doctors diagnosed liver failure caused by an unidentified form of hepatitis. LeBleu began drifting in and out of consciousness, prompting doctors to put him on a national list for liver transplant patients. They have yet to determine how he contracted the hepatitis.

Doctors said LeBleu was days away from death when a liver arrived Saturday from an unidentified New Mexico donor.

LeBleu’s stepfather, Eric Lamendola, urged people to register as organ donors. “There is someone out there who lost someone, but they have given us Chris back,” he said.