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Hospital Confirms Steve Jobs's Liver Transplant

CNet is reporting that the hospital where Apple's CEO reportedly got a liver transplant two months ago has now confirmed the truth of these reports. "Steve Jobs underwent his liver transplant about two months ago at Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, the hospital confirmed Tuesday. Jobs, who returned to work Apple's campus in Cupertino, Calif., on Monday after a six-month medical leave, 'is now recovering well and has an excellent prognosis,' according to a statement by Dr. James D. Eason, the program director of the Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute. ... While Eason said the confirmation was being provided with Jobs's approval, he cited patient confidentially in saying that he could not reveal any further information on the specifics of Jobs's surgery."

10 of 402 comments (clear)

  1. I did not think that by bugs2squash · · Score: 5, Funny

    third party upgrades were approved

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  2. Parts by Scutter · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maybe now he'll understand why it's so important to be able to install third-party parts and he'll decide to loosen-up the licensing a little bit.

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    "Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
  3. Re:So, about that "hormone imbalance"... by reverseengineer · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, if Jobs was experiencing liver failure, it probably was accompanied by hormone imbalances- the liver is responsible for breaking down a wide variety of hormones, most notably the steroid hormones. So the idea that he was suffering from a "hormone imbalance" is probably true, but omitting the proximate cause of that hormone imbalance, if it happened to be liver failure, is being less than completely honest to the public and to Apple's investors.

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    "FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
  4. Re:This is actually a new Apple product by spankyofoz · · Score: 5, Funny

    And when he takes his shirt off you can see the backlit apple logo they installed, which also mysteriously doubled the cost of the operation.

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  5. Re:given he conned the transplant system, YES. by Darkness404 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Oh heaven forbid that someone actually uses the money they created to get better faster. Heaven forbid that some people are going to be able to afford things that others cannot. Its the same thing with health care. Because there is not an infinite supply of livers, along with an infinite supply of doctors, its true that some people might not be able to afford a liver transplant. Sure, its sad, but such is life.

    Oh yeah, and Apple lied to investors and the world: the man had cancer and a failing organ, and they claimed it was a "hormone imbalance." I hope the SEC is already working on this...

    A few things A) You are not entitled to know everything about Steve Jobs B) The shareholders really only need to know that someone will take the place if Jobs dies C) Steve Jobs, or any other CEO could die of any random cause at any time and D) Perhaps thats all that was confirmed at the time? And I'd say that you would probably have a hormone imbalance if you had a failing organ.

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  6. I feel anger. by reporter · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Steve Jobs is another example of how wealth buys health and an easy life.

    The USA has several organ-transplant centers. In theory, patients can enter their name into the waiting list of any or all centers.

    Practically speaking, most patients enter their name into the waiting list of the single most accessible center. The patients then arrange to live near the center as their name approaches the top of the list. Physicians cannot just freeze a liver for a week until you can arrange a plane ticket to reach the center. Livers are perishable items.

    Due to the aforementioned cost and logistical issues, patients are effectively restricted to only 1 center. However, Steve Jobs -- with his billions of dollars -- can enter his name into all the waiting lists of all the centers. He can hire a private jet service to take him to any center immediately.

    Life just is not fair.

    1. Re:I feel anger. by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, life is not fair, but honestly this is not a case of someone being rich and privileged because he was born into the right family. Steve Jobs as much as anyone has earned his money. He's worked hard and he's added a lot to society. If we tried to cut him down so things were more fair, then it would be a loss to all of us.

      Things will never be completely fair, but the way to make them more fair is to help everyone become more rich and powerful. The only way that can happen is if everyone is more productive: imagine if everyone accomplished in their life things similar to what Steve Jobs has done. When he got fired from, he started another company that made something cool. That's not easy, but he did it.

      We don't all have to start our own companies, but if we were all just as productive in our respective fields, we probably would already have synthetic liver replacements. We might have green coal plants. We might have more efficient ways to grow food, allowing the existing farmers to focus their attention on more interesting things (oh, well we already have that one to quite an extent).

      This is the way of the future, and it's where the left gets off track: instead of trying to destroy stupid bankers who get rich off naive customers, without producing anything real, the key is to educate those 'stupid' customers to create real things, and to contribute to society in real ways; then the bankers will go off and f*** themselves because everyone will see them for what they are, leeches on society.

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      Qxe4
  7. There's no reason to be angry. by FiloEleven · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Some people have more money and more power and better opportunities than others, but that doesn't make it automatically unfair. Would you cry "foul" if a sitting President took the same actions as Jobs? It's not like he cheated the system (as a President probably would). Would you be angry with a friend for buying a new TV or laptop that you wanted but couldn't afford?

    Practically speaking, most patients enter their name into the waiting list of the single most accessible center. The patients then arrange to live near the center as their name approaches the top of the list.

    Given that all centers were equally accessible to him, he did exactly what every patient does. He is smart enough to know that a queue of 295 is significantly lower than a queue of 1615, and all other things being equal the rational choice is to go for the shortest line. If you were in Jobs's place, what would you have done differently?

    What is the point of having wealth if you don't use it to your advantage? Of course it can be misused, but you're going to have to work a lot harder to argue that that is the case here.

  8. Jobs was probably in denial by richardcavell · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In my experience (I'm a doctor), almost all cancer patients go into denial and will downplay the severity of their symptoms. Steve Jobs is a billionaire, a tech guru, and all that, but he's also a human being. Based on what's publicly known, I'd say that his pancreatic islet cell cancer spread to his liver and that his liver tumour was non-resectable, and now he's ended up with a new liver by way of getting rid of the metastases. He describes his situation as a 'hormone imbalance' because that's one of the consequences of his condition, but the underlying diagnosis is far worse than that. Bottom line is that he's a very sick man... a cancer patient with a liver transplant has a limited life expectancy, and his role is now going to be figurehead/part time inputter of ideas more than being the day-to-day boss. Richard

  9. Re:Conservative blind side... by NtroP · · Score: 5, Interesting

    in spite of doubling my net worth in the last decade - I am still struggling to afford the basic necessities of life. It means little to be able to buy that killer laptop when I can't afford to put a roof over my head. This isn't an education problem; it isn't a problem of productivity. It is a problem of economics and of corporate greed.

    Although I can sympathize with the frustration and apparent hopelessness of your situation, I have to disagree. The reason our parents had a better standard of living is that they did not live in the same "credit-based" society. In fact, my parents were still very much influenced by the great depression and the frugality that entailed.

    Disclaimer: I was struggling under a huge load of debt that I'm still crawling out of, but have come to realize a few things as I have become debt-free and a master of my own destiny.

    A vast percentage of our income goes to taxes and covering our debt-load. There is little I can do about my taxes, but I can have an impact on my debt and the interest I pay on it. Look at it this way: Last year I paid over $20,000 in interest on my mortgage. The year before that I paid almost that much interest on my credit card debt. Those two things were basically eating up a whole person's income in our household budget. That isn't even considering the interest we were paying on student loans, car loans, personal lines of credit, etc.

    Two years ago I realized I was spending so much of my time working to just pay interest on my lifestyle that I wasn't able to make any headway. So my family went cold turkey. We went to a cash basis. We scraped together $1,000.00 cash that we locked in our safe for emergencies and put every other penny we could scrape together into paying off our debt. We sold our toys. We worked extra hours. We stopped eating out. We turned down the heat and bought second-hand sweaters. We made a strict written budget and stuck with it.

    Over the last two years we've been able to pay off almost $90,000 in debt. Debt! Money we were borrowing to help us live the lifestyle we deserved but were unwilling to pay for up front. Had we lived this frugally from the beginning we would have just put that same $90,000.00 to use working for us and investing in our future. In two more years we could have paid cash for a $180,000.00 house and not had a house-payment! When I see that, it makes me sick to realize how much money I've been wasting on interest and "toys" that could have gone toward giving my family the lifestyle they really deserve. We've been living on a borrowed lifestyle. Well, no more!

    We should be completely debt-free in about another year if things were to stay the same. However, we just learned that my wife will be taking a huge pay-cut in order to keep her job (to the tune of $30,000.00 a year). It terrifies me to think what sort of financial position we'd have been in if we hadn't started paying off debt two years ago. Back then, we were "doing fine" in that we were easily able to make our monthly payments and have some left over for "fun". But had we kept on that path a $30K reduction in income would have bankrupted us. Now it just means it will take us a little longer to get out of debt. But get out we will and I will never borrow another cent from anyone in my life.

    Just thinking about the sort of life I could have had for my family had I lived the way my parents did and followed their example. Instead I criticized them for being so "stingy" and not getting the things they could "afford" and not "leveraging" their assets. Well, looks like the laughs on me. They are retired now. Last year they paid cash for a house. Paid cash to fix it up. and now have it rented out. Their money is working for them. They have no debt. They are taking their profits and looking for the next good opportunity to come along. They are positioned well to take advantage of the many deals this economy has for them.

    I've sat both my kids down (they're 19, and 20) and laid out to them w

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