PHOTOS: An ALS patient’s gift to the future
Elizabeth Uyehara, who had Lou Gehrig’s disease, allowed her niece to videotape one of their final conversations. This image is taken off the niece’s laptop. Wearing a red blouse, Uyehara lay in bed and typed out her thoughts about prayer, spirituality and dying. She donated her organs to UCLA.
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David Jones, director of the lab at UCLAs National Neurological AIDS Bank, opens a laboratory freezer containing donor tissue. Before she died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Elizabeth Uyehara donated her body to the university so that researchers could study the neuromuscular disease. Jones performed the organ harvest on Uyehara.
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Dr. Martina Wiedau-Pazos, a researcher at UCLA, watches as a star burst of green fluorescent light emanates from a slide holding the spinal tissue of Elizabeth Uyehara. In a blog post, Uyehara wrote: “Naturally, I would like to be around when they get the results of all this, but I guess that’s out of the question.”
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Peggy Mizumoto, the niece of Elizabeth Uyehara, shares memories while holding an urn containing the ashes of her aunt. After Uyeharas organs were harvested, her body was cremated and presented to the family.
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Elizabeth Uyehara met her husband, Paul, in a class at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. They exhibited together in a number of local galleries and had enlarged their home studio just months before she was diagnosed with Lou Gehrigs disease.
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Elizabeth Uyehara and her husband, Paul, were accomplished artists. Their home in Reseda was not only a showcase of their paintings (here, two of Pauls), but also a reflection of their diminished lives. Even as she grew weaker from the effects of Lou Gehrig’s disease, Elizabeth tried to care for Paul, who had been diagnosed with Parkinsons.
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After Elizabeth Uyehara died, her family would gather at her home in Reseda, helping Elizabeth’s husband, Paul. Dorothy Bell, Paul’s cousin, sweeps the backyard.
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Elizabeth Uyehara’s niece, Peggy Mizumoto, joins the Rev. Ikechukwu Ikeocha as he blesses Paul Uyehara, 82, three weeks after Elizabeth’s death.
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Surrounded by his and his wife’s paintings, Paul Uyehara sleeps in his room just days before leaving their home in Reseda for an assisted-living facility.
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