Marine Survived Iraq, Now Fights for Life

LOMA LINDA, Calif. – Sitting in a hospital lobby, Melany LeBleu finds comfort in photos of her wedding last fall, shortly after her young Marine groom returned from Iraq. But upstairs her young Marine, Lance Cpl. Chris LeBleu, is in a coma, on life support, afflicted with a mysterious liver ailment that doctors say will kill him within days if he doesn’t get a transplant. Strangers have offered donate parts of their liver, but LeBleu’s condition is so critical he needs an entire organ.

"He’s fighting," Melany LeBleu, 21, said Saturday as she took a break from sitting by his bedside. "But we need a liver. We need a donor."

The cause of the infection is unknown. Most likely, said Dr. Donald J. Hillebrand, a liver specialist, he caught a virus or was exposed to a toxin or chemical in Iraq or after his return.

LeBleu was a rifleman in Iraq for seven months as part of a 2,200-man task force that lost 21 people and had nearly 200 wounded in action. His battalion commander, Lt. Col. Matt Lopez, said he wasn’t aware of any other members of the unit with similar ailments to LeBleu.

Fellow Marines call him "Blue," and say the Marine kept a cool head as his 160-man company guarded a base near the Syrian border.

"He’s a real resilient guy, the most relaxed, confident person you’ll ever meet," said Lance Cpl. Rob Whittenberg, 23, of Spring Branch, Texas.

The infection developed gradually.

In mid-December, just months after he returned from Iraq, the 22-year-old LeBleu told his new wife he felt tired, a little under the weather.

Still, he was strong enough to drive them home to Louisiana for the holidays from his Marine Base in Southern California, going for 36 hours straight. On Jan. 2, he found the strength to go wild boar hunting with relatives.

"We kept telling him to go to a doctor, but he said it was just a sinus infection," Melany LeBleu said. "Of course, we didn’t think it was anything major."

Days later, he felt much worse during the drive back to the Marine base at Twentynine Palms. In Texas, LeBleu felt so nauseous he had to pull over. They made it back to their home on the base, but he didn’t get better.

On Jan. 10, she took him to a base emergency room, which sent him to Loma Linda University Medical Center, about 50 miles east of Los Angeles.

"He couldn’t keep anything down, not even water," she said.

As recently as Thursday, he was jaundiced and swelling but could still answer questions, Hillebrand said.

Within 24 hours, however, he was no longer coherent and had to be put on life support.

In a few days, his other organs will start to fail, his doctor said.

"He won’t be in this condition a week from now," Hillebrand said. "Either he’s going to be recovering from a liver transplant or there are going to be a lot of people full of sorrow."

About 17,500 people are waiting for liver transplants in the United States, Hillebrand said. LeBleu’s family and friends hope he can receive a liver from someone with O-positive blood as a directed donation, outside the usual waiting process.

"Our number one priority is to get him a liver," Lopez said. "But we also want to make people aware of the need for organ donors."

The Marines and his wife hope LeBleu’s resilience keeps him going long enough to receive a donated liver.

"It’s hard to see your husband in that situation," Melany LeBleu said. "You can’t even describe the feeling."

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Associated Press Writer Doug Simpson in New Orleans contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

Network for Organ Sharing: http://www.unos.org/

Society of Transplant Surgeons: http://www.asts.org/Donorsolicitation.cfm