Aa
RIP Lou Reed
"Lou Reed, lead singer of the Velvet Underground, veteran chronicler of life's wilder, seamier and more desperate side and one of the most influential and distinctive songwriters of his generation, has died at the age of 71.
He had been suffering from liver failure and received a transplant earlier this year.
Reed's literary agent, Andrew Wylie, said the musician died on Sunday morning in Southampton, New York, of an illness related to the transplant. His UK music agent, Andy Woolliscroft, confirmed the news to the Guardian earlier on Sunday night, saying: "Yes I'm afraid it's true. I'm very upset."
I'm sad about his passing, have always been a big fan. He had HepC and received the liver transplant in May at Clevenland Clinic. We don't know any details of what caused his liver failure so soon after transplant, I hope more detail will be known and released to the public.
"You know they're singin', "Sweet Jane
Ah sweet Jane
Ooh sweet Jane"
RIP Lou Reed
"And the colored girls go / "Doo do doo do doo do do doo"
He had been suffering from liver failure and received a transplant earlier this year.
Reed's literary agent, Andrew Wylie, said the musician died on Sunday morning in Southampton, New York, of an illness related to the transplant. His UK music agent, Andy Woolliscroft, confirmed the news to the Guardian earlier on Sunday night, saying: "Yes I'm afraid it's true. I'm very upset."
I'm sad about his passing, have always been a big fan. He had HepC and received the liver transplant in May at Clevenland Clinic. We don't know any details of what caused his liver failure so soon after transplant, I hope more detail will be known and released to the public.
"You know they're singin', "Sweet Jane
Ah sweet Jane
Ooh sweet Jane"
RIP Lou Reed
"And the colored girls go / "Doo do doo do doo do do doo"
RIP lou...gone but not forgotten. his music was awesome. i saw him at the roxy in hollywood in the 70's. i'm very sad for this news. belle
Yes, I had a friend that did not make it. They passed her by way to long because she was not quite sick enough and then by the time she was considered, she was really almost too weak to get it by then. Very sad for her
Yes, thank for this post. We'll always have Lou Reed's music to remember him by.
I was going to say how not all survive a liver transplant but Hector said it better and more thoroughly than I ever could.
What I do know is while recuperating in the hospital, I saw people post transplant who I didn't think were going to make it. Not all do.
I was going to say how not all survive a liver transplant but Hector said it better and more thoroughly than I ever could.
What I do know is while recuperating in the hospital, I saw people post transplant who I didn't think were going to make it. Not all do.
From The WSJ
http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303471004579165513269039296-lMyQjAxMTAzMDMwMDEzNDAyWj
http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303471004579165513269039296-lMyQjAxMTAzMDMwMDEzNDAyWj
I agree with your comments.
As far as all the haters...
I think Lou answered them long ago.
"You're going to reap just what you sow"
Perfect Day
"Just a perfect day
Drink sangria in the park
And then later, when it gets dark
We go home
Just a perfect day
Feed animals in the zoo
Then later a movie, too
And then home
Oh, it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spent it with you
Oh, such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on
You just keep me hanging on
Just a perfect day
Problems all left alone
Weekenders on our own
It's such fun
Just a perfect day
You made me forget myself
I thought I was someone else
Someone good
Oh, it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spent it with you
Oh, such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on
You just keep me hanging on
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYEC4TZsy-Y&feature=youtu.be
To paraphrase Dylan...Don't let them get you down in the hole that their in.
Hector
As far as all the haters...
I think Lou answered them long ago.
"You're going to reap just what you sow"
Perfect Day
"Just a perfect day
Drink sangria in the park
And then later, when it gets dark
We go home
Just a perfect day
Feed animals in the zoo
Then later a movie, too
And then home
Oh, it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spent it with you
Oh, such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on
You just keep me hanging on
Just a perfect day
Problems all left alone
Weekenders on our own
It's such fun
Just a perfect day
You made me forget myself
I thought I was someone else
Someone good
Oh, it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spent it with you
Oh, such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on
You just keep me hanging on
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYEC4TZsy-Y&feature=youtu.be
To paraphrase Dylan...Don't let them get you down in the hole that their in.
Hector
This is a terrible loss in more ways than one. I agree w/HCVinPDX in that this was a perfect opportunity for the CDC to reiterate HCV testing. They and the media dropped the ball once again.
His music will continue to live through us....RIP
His music will continue to live through us....RIP
I read a lot of comments on news sites because it gives you a feel for the mentality of the readers. There's a lot of discussion about giving a liver to a 71 year old patient and the fact that he openly abused drugs. From my understanding, Lou was sober for about 30 years but this detail didn't stop people from being super critical.
I am pretty open about having HCV and although I did some stupid things back in the early 80's, I can't be sure how I got it. Naturally, I was disappointed to read the comments.
I also feel that the media should have taken the opportunity to encourage baby-boomers to get tested. After learning that another person I used to know just died from Hep C, I am really beginning to understand how lucky I am that my Dr. decided to test me.
I am pretty open about having HCV and although I did some stupid things back in the early 80's, I can't be sure how I got it. Naturally, I was disappointed to read the comments.
I also feel that the media should have taken the opportunity to encourage baby-boomers to get tested. After learning that another person I used to know just died from Hep C, I am really beginning to understand how lucky I am that my Dr. decided to test me.
It broke my heart too. I guess it's natural having been through treatment to want to know details. I to was wondering if he had been treated and cleared hep c or did he still have it at the time of the transplant. It's a hard fight, RIP Lou Reed.
What happened to Lou I can't say. His medical information is private and that is the way it should be.
There are many things that can and do happen post liver transplant that can lead to death. Anyone who believes that liver transplant is the answer and a 100% cure for either hepatitis C or liver disease is misinformed about the reality of liver transplant. Liver transplant is a life changing surgery that entails removing the largest internal organ. No small feat. While most do well and continue to live a substantial number of patients have complications after surgery. For those with hep C they have the additional burden of still having to manage there hep C. Hopefully the future hepatitis C treatment will help post transplant patients cure their hepatitis C before it destroys their donor livers. Approximately 20–30% of HCV-infected patients develop cirrhosis within 5 years after transplantation. There is also a very aggressive form of hep C recurrence called "fibrosing cholestatic HCV infection", in which a few patients have high levels of HCV RNA, elevated bilirubin levels, and progressive fibrosis that leads to graft loss/liver failure and death in 1–2 years.
We are each individuals and we all respond differently to our diseases and treatments. So even if we go to the best transplant centers in the world, as Lou did, there are times when nothing can be done medically for some of us. That is why it is important for people to cure their hepatitis C, if at all possible, before they ever need a liver transplant. All of us transplant patients know that there are no guarantees and everyday we are alive is a precious day. Some of us may not even get the chance for a transplant and die before even having that option. So it all depends on where you are sitting if is a good or bad thing that Lou lived 5 months longer than he normally would have because he did receive a transplant. I am sure his wife and friends thought so.
Nothing But Death - Solo La Muerte
by Pablo Neruda
(translated by Robert Bly)
There are cemeteries that are lonely,
graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
the heart moving through a tunnel,
in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.
And there are corpses,
feet made of cold and sticky clay,
death is inside the bones,
like a barking where there are no dogs,
coming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere,
growing in the damp air like tears of rain.
Sometimes I see alone
coffins under sail,
embarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair,
with bakers who are as white as angels,
and pensive young girls married to notary publics,
caskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead,
the river of dark purple,
moving upstream with sails filled out by the sound of death,
filled by the sound of death which is silence.
Death arrives among all that sound
like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it,
comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no
finger in it,
comes and shouts with no mouth, with no tongue, with no
throat.
Nevertheless its steps can be heard
and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree.
I'm not sure, I understand only a little, I can hardly see,
but it seems to me that its singing has the color of damp violets,
of violets that are at home in the earth,
because the face of death is green,
and the look death gives is green,
with the penetrating dampness of a violet leaf
and the somber color of embittered winter.
But death also goes through the world dressed as a broom,
lapping the floor, looking for dead bodies,
death is inside the broom,
the broom is the tongue of death looking for corpses,
it is the needle of death looking for thread.
Death is inside the folding cots:
it spends its life sleeping on the slow mattresses,
in the black blankets, and suddenly breathes out:
it blows out a mournful sound that swells the sheets,
and the beds go sailing toward a port
where death is waiting, dressed like an admiral.
Take care.
Hector
There are many things that can and do happen post liver transplant that can lead to death. Anyone who believes that liver transplant is the answer and a 100% cure for either hepatitis C or liver disease is misinformed about the reality of liver transplant. Liver transplant is a life changing surgery that entails removing the largest internal organ. No small feat. While most do well and continue to live a substantial number of patients have complications after surgery. For those with hep C they have the additional burden of still having to manage there hep C. Hopefully the future hepatitis C treatment will help post transplant patients cure their hepatitis C before it destroys their donor livers. Approximately 20–30% of HCV-infected patients develop cirrhosis within 5 years after transplantation. There is also a very aggressive form of hep C recurrence called "fibrosing cholestatic HCV infection", in which a few patients have high levels of HCV RNA, elevated bilirubin levels, and progressive fibrosis that leads to graft loss/liver failure and death in 1–2 years.
We are each individuals and we all respond differently to our diseases and treatments. So even if we go to the best transplant centers in the world, as Lou did, there are times when nothing can be done medically for some of us. That is why it is important for people to cure their hepatitis C, if at all possible, before they ever need a liver transplant. All of us transplant patients know that there are no guarantees and everyday we are alive is a precious day. Some of us may not even get the chance for a transplant and die before even having that option. So it all depends on where you are sitting if is a good or bad thing that Lou lived 5 months longer than he normally would have because he did receive a transplant. I am sure his wife and friends thought so.
Nothing But Death - Solo La Muerte
by Pablo Neruda
(translated by Robert Bly)
There are cemeteries that are lonely,
graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
the heart moving through a tunnel,
in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.
And there are corpses,
feet made of cold and sticky clay,
death is inside the bones,
like a barking where there are no dogs,
coming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere,
growing in the damp air like tears of rain.
Sometimes I see alone
coffins under sail,
embarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair,
with bakers who are as white as angels,
and pensive young girls married to notary publics,
caskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead,
the river of dark purple,
moving upstream with sails filled out by the sound of death,
filled by the sound of death which is silence.
Death arrives among all that sound
like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it,
comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no
finger in it,
comes and shouts with no mouth, with no tongue, with no
throat.
Nevertheless its steps can be heard
and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree.
I'm not sure, I understand only a little, I can hardly see,
but it seems to me that its singing has the color of damp violets,
of violets that are at home in the earth,
because the face of death is green,
and the look death gives is green,
with the penetrating dampness of a violet leaf
and the somber color of embittered winter.
But death also goes through the world dressed as a broom,
lapping the floor, looking for dead bodies,
death is inside the broom,
the broom is the tongue of death looking for corpses,
it is the needle of death looking for thread.
Death is inside the folding cots:
it spends its life sleeping on the slow mattresses,
in the black blankets, and suddenly breathes out:
it blows out a mournful sound that swells the sheets,
and the beds go sailing toward a port
where death is waiting, dressed like an admiral.
Take care.
Hector
I'm with you Advocate, what happened? Hope they say more. Did the HepC destroy his liver that fast, or was it rejection of new liver? All of us here on this Hep C social are in search of knowledge to help ourselves or loved ones suffering from this disease. Thanks so much Hector for this additional info from the Cleveland Clinic. At least Lou was able to die at home in New York with his family at his side.
So, what happened? He had a liver transplant in April, and died of ESLD in October? Does that mean that whatever damaged his first liver continued damaging his new liver?
Advocate1955
Advocate1955
From the NYT obituary.
" Lou Reed, the singer, songwriter and guitarist whose work with the Velvet Underground in the 1960s had a major influence on generations of rock musicians, and who remained a powerful if polarizing force for the rest of his life, died on Sunday at his home in Amagansett, N.Y., on Long Island. He was 71.
The cause was liver disease, said Dr. Charles Miller of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, where Mr. Reed had liver transplant surgery this year and was being treated again until a few days ago.
(Charles Miller, MD, is the Director of Liver Transplantation in the Transplantation Center at Cleveland Clinic.)
...Sober since the ’80s and a practitioner of tai chi, Mr. Reed had a liver transplant in April at the Cleveland Clinic. “I am a triumph of modern medicine, physics and chemistry,” he wrote in a public statement upon his release. “I am bigger and stronger than ever.”
But he was back at the clinic for treatment last week. Dr. Miller, who performed the transplant, said Mr. Reed decided to return home after doctors could no longer treat his end-stage liver disease. “We all agreed that we did everything we could,” Dr. Miller said."
Hector
" Lou Reed, the singer, songwriter and guitarist whose work with the Velvet Underground in the 1960s had a major influence on generations of rock musicians, and who remained a powerful if polarizing force for the rest of his life, died on Sunday at his home in Amagansett, N.Y., on Long Island. He was 71.
The cause was liver disease, said Dr. Charles Miller of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, where Mr. Reed had liver transplant surgery this year and was being treated again until a few days ago.
(Charles Miller, MD, is the Director of Liver Transplantation in the Transplantation Center at Cleveland Clinic.)
...Sober since the ’80s and a practitioner of tai chi, Mr. Reed had a liver transplant in April at the Cleveland Clinic. “I am a triumph of modern medicine, physics and chemistry,” he wrote in a public statement upon his release. “I am bigger and stronger than ever.”
But he was back at the clinic for treatment last week. Dr. Miller, who performed the transplant, said Mr. Reed decided to return home after doctors could no longer treat his end-stage liver disease. “We all agreed that we did everything we could,” Dr. Miller said."
Hector
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".......Lou was sick for the last couple of years, first from treatments of interferon, a vile but sometimes effective series of injections that treats hepatitis C and comes with lots of nasty side effects. Then he developed liver cancer, topped off with advancing diabetes. We got good at hospitals. He learned everything about the diseases, and treatments. He kept doing tai chi every day for two hours, plus photography, books, recordings, his radio show with Hal Willner and many other projects. He loved his friends, and called, texted, e-mailed when he couldn't be with them. We tried to understand and apply things our teacher Mingyur Rinpoche said – especially hard ones like, "You need to try to master the ability to feel sad without actually being sad."
Last spring, at the last minute, he received a liver transplant, which seemed to work perfectly, and he almost instantly regained his health and energy. Then that, too, began to fail, and there was no way out. But when the doctor said, "That's it. We have no more options," the only part of that Lou heard was "options" – he didn't give up until the last half-hour of his life, when he suddenly accepted it – all at once and completely. We were at home – I'd gotten him out of the hospital a few days before – and even though he was extremely weak, he insisted on going out into the bright morning light......"