Celebrities w/Kidney Disease

[paris]

 I would like to see the Larry King interview.  I have always enjoyed Walter Matthau's work.  What a genius he was.

[MyssAnne]

I knew about Walter Matthau, and his decision, I hadn't realized John Ehrlichman had also. Interesting. How come, as noted earlier, if it's NOT cancer, it's not as publicized? Not as glamorous?  I hadn't realized Walter had done an interview with Larry King. I bet that was good. Walther Matthau was a very intelligent man, as well as an entertaining actor.

[goofynina]

I didnt know that about Walter Matthau, I loved him as Buttermaker in The Bad News Bears (remember that)?   But i think i loved him in The Grump Old Men even better.    R.I.P. Walter 

[Beth36]

Walter Payton, an NFL football player--I think he played for Chicago(I do know he was originally from Mississippi, died waiting for a kidney transplant.....it was so sad.


Beth

[livecam]

Walter Matthau recently died of kidney failure.  He had a long and excruciating discussion about his disease with Larry King on television, which demonstrated how little most healthy people are able to understand about the disease.  John Ehrlichman, a former Nixon aide during the Watergate scandal, and one of the Justices of the Canadian Supreme Court also recently developed renal failure, and both of them refused to go on dialysis and preferred death instead.

Stauffenberg, once again you twist the truth.  Walter Matthau did not die of kidney disease or "prefer death" as you claim above.  ESRD was a contributing factor but not the actual cause of death.

From Wikipedia the cause of Walter Matthau's death:

Walter Matthau died of full cardiac arrest on July 1, 2000, in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 79. After heart surgery, doctors discovered that he had colon cancer, which had spread to his liver, lungs and brain. However, on his death certificate the causes of death are listed as cardiac arrest and atherosclerotic heart disease, with ESRD and atrial fibrillation added as "other significant conditions contributing to death but not related to [primary] cause..." (see [1]) with no mention of the cancer.

See Stauffenberg...he had a heart attack...now unless you are claiming he willed the heart attack on himself he hardly "preferred death".  If you can't get your facts right please don't post at all.

[poohkari]

Richard Pryor was on dialysis - NxStage! just prior to his death. Our training nurse told us this while we were training. He was one of the first people to be on NxStage and apparently in some of his last interviews, you can see the machine in his house.

[okarol]

Walter Matthau recently died of kidney failure.  He had a long and excruciating discussion about his disease with Larry King on television, which demonstrated how little most healthy people are able to understand about the disease.  John Ehrlichman, a former Nixon aide during the Watergate scandal, and one of the Justices of the Canadian Supreme Court also recently developed renal failure, and both of them refused to go on dialysis and preferred death instead.

Here's the interview - about 5 months before Walter's death - he was apparently on dialysis, a result of kidney damage from some medications he received when hospitalized - http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0002/10/lkl.00.html

[okarol]

Walter Payton, an NFL football player--I think he played for Chicago(I do know he was originally from Mississippi, died waiting for a kidney transplant.....it was so sad.


Beth

Walter Payton was waiting for a liver transplant, according to Wikipedia: "After struggling with a rare liver disease for several months, Payton died in 1999 at the age of 45."

[okarol]

Sean Elliot (basketball player).

San Antonio Spurs forward Sean Elliott, who underwent kidney transplant surgery August 16, 1999, served as spokesperson for the National Kidney Foundation 2000 US Transplant Games.  This Olympic-style event is for athletes who have received life-saving organ transplants of every type, including kidney, liver, heart, lung, pancreas and bone marrow. 

After suffering from focal glomerulosclerosis for six years, Elliott received a kidney transplant from his brother, Noel.  Elliott, served as color commentator for the Spur during his leave, triumphantly returned to the Spurs starting line-up as of March 14, 2000.  Elliott's return to basketball, unprecedented in sports history, was another comeback for him. He returned from knee surgery to sink the shot that brought the Spurs an NBA title.

[Beth36]

  for some reason I thought it was a kidney...I guess I shouldn't post after having a beer....eeek!

 

Beth

[okarol]

for some reason I thought it was a kidney...I guess I shouldn't post after having a beer....eeek!

 

Beth

 

[paddbear0000]

Walter Matthau recently died of kidney failure.  He had a long and excruciating discussion about his disease with Larry King on television, which demonstrated how little most healthy people are able to understand about the disease.  John Ehrlichman, a former Nixon aide during the Watergate scandal, and one of the Justices of the Canadian Supreme Court also recently developed renal failure, and both of them refused to go on dialysis and preferred death instead.

Stauffenberg, once again you twist the truth.  Walter Matthau did not die of kidney disease or "prefer death" as you claim above.  ESRD was a contributing factor but not the actual cause of death.

From Wikipedia the cause of Walter Matthau's death:

Walter Matthau died of full cardiac arrest on July 1, 2000, in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 79. After heart surgery, doctors discovered that he had colon cancer, which had spread to his liver, lungs and brain. However, on his death certificate the causes of death are listed as cardiac arrest and atherosclerotic heart disease, with ESRD and atrial fibrillation added as "other significant conditions contributing to death but not related to [primary] cause..." (see [1]) with no mention of the cancer.

See Stauffenberg...he had a heart attack...now unless you are claiming he willed the heart attack on himself he hardly "preferred death".  If you can't get your facts right please don't post at all.

I don't completely believe everything on Wikipedia. Anybody, from a professor to your 10 year old cousin can log on and edit the information. While doing research for a paper last year, I found a lot of info on that site was factually incorrect based on other research from encyclopedias, researchers and the government. Every professor I've had to write a paper for in the last year or so, have all said that they do not accept research from Wikipedia.

[paris]

Karol, thanks for posting the Larry King interview. I really wanted to read it, but hadn't begun to search for it.  You are always on top of things!

[BigSky]

Walter Matthau recently died of kidney failure.  He had a long and excruciating discussion about his disease with Larry King on television, which demonstrated how little most healthy people are able to understand about the disease.  John Ehrlichman, a former Nixon aide during the Watergate scandal, and one of the Justices of the Canadian Supreme Court also recently developed renal failure, and both of them refused to go on dialysis and preferred death instead.

Stauffenberg, once again you twist the truth.  Walter Matthau did not die of kidney disease or "prefer death" as you claim above.  ESRD was a contributing factor but not the actual cause of death.

From Wikipedia the cause of Walter Matthau's death:

Walter Matthau died of full cardiac arrest on July 1, 2000, in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 79. After heart surgery, doctors discovered that he had colon cancer, which had spread to his liver, lungs and brain. However, on his death certificate the causes of death are listed as cardiac arrest and atherosclerotic heart disease, with ESRD and atrial fibrillation added as "other significant conditions contributing to death but not related to [primary] cause..." (see [1]) with no mention of the cancer.

See Stauffenberg...he had a heart attack...now unless you are claiming he willed the heart attack on himself he hardly "preferred death".  If you can't get your facts right please don't post at all.

IMO ESRD played the bigger role in the heart attack.  Its not uncommon for cause of death to be listed as something else rather than the effects or problems caused by the ESRD.   Cardiac episodes are the leading cause of death in dialysis patients. 

[paris]

My husband and I were just discussing this.  He wonders how many people had renal failure, but had other complications, so cause of death is listed as heart failure or whatever.  His point is that if it was cancer, that would be what they listed as cause of death.  Great thread!

[stauffenberg]

First of all, Livecam should note that NO WHERE did I say that Walter Matthau preferred death to life with kidney disease.  For those able to read English, it is clear that I said that death was preferred to life with kidney disease by Ehrlichman and the Canadian Supreme Court justice, NOT Matthau.

Second, cardiac arrest is the major final step to death in people on dialysis, which does not mean they did not essentially die of the effects dialysis had in contributing to their cardiac death.  After all, if you want to get technical, by the same stupid reasoning which concentrates only on the final step of the dying process rather than the fundamental, underlying cause which sets it in motion, people who shoot themselves in the head don't die of a gunshot wound, but from strangling on their own blood as it pours down their neck while the brain is incapable of regulating deglutition to prevent choking!

[BigSteve]

What about Stephen Spielberg? He had a nephetomy a number of
years ago, but he would never admit what the problem was. I hope his
other kidney is working better than my one after my nephetomy. I wonder
if he had kidney cancer like I did but won't say for publicity reasons.

[Jannie]

A very famous actress in the 1930's The Very First Blonde Bombshell, Jean Harlow, died of kidney failure. That was, of course, before the days of dialysis and transplants.

[stauffenberg]

Jean Harlow probably had one of the autoimmune diseases which attack the kidneys, such as vasculitis.  There was absolutely no treatment for vasculitis until prednisone was used as an immunosuppressant to slow down its attacks starting in the 1960s, so back in the 1930s, the doctors had nothing to do but watch the actress die while making themselves look useful by writing, 'Strange idiopathic renal disease' in their notebooks.  Mozart is thought by medical historians to have died of the same or a similar condition, probably Henoch-Schoenlein Disease, another autoimmunity form which attacks the kidneys.

Another classic actor (from 'Casablanca' and 'The Maltese Falcon') to die of renal failure was Sidney Greenstreet, the massively overweight fellow who developed type 2 diabetes and then renal disease secondary to that.

[George Jung]

I think this thread is very cool.

Lets not take away from that with stuff like this.

If you can't get your facts right please don't post at all.

Even if someone were to post false information I seriously doubt there is/was intent to do so.  What motive does anyone here have to do such a thing. 

I probably should have kept my mouth shut on this one but it just seems very wrong to me. 
I hope I'm not too far out of line. -George

[rimbo74]

I'm famous and I have had a kidney transplant.   

[goofynina]

And Mr. Rimbo, mind if i ask you where we could possibly know you from??   Wait a minute, i remember one time we went into this Adult Book Store and there was this video and the guy...... he looked just......with a thicker mustache and a fro, i think................naaaaaaaaah, couldn't be     (but if it is, can you autograph my movie)     

[angela515]

And Mr. Rimbo, mind if i ask you where we could possibly know you from??   Wait a minute, i remember one time we went into this Adult Book Store and there was this video and the guy...... he looked just......with a thicker mustache and a fro, i think................naaaaaaaaah, couldn't be     (but if it is, can you autograph my movie)     

 

[kitkatz]

Goofynina..it was the OTHER movie he was in. He can autograph my copy!

[Wattle]

And Mr. Rimbo, mind if i ask you where we could possibly know you from??   Wait a minute, i remember one time we went into this Adult Book Store and there was this video and the guy...... he looked just......with a thicker mustache and a fro, i think................naaaaaaaaah, couldn't be     (but if it is, can you autograph my movie)