LIVERMORE FALLS – Joey “Red” Chabot looks older than his 57 years. The once physically fit man now has a pot belly, no muscle tone and walks very slowly.
And, it’s through no fault of his own.
Chabot’s liver has deteriorated to the point where it’s just keeping him alive.
He learned 3 years ago that he had hepatitis C.
Doctors caught it by accident, Chabot said, when they started checking military veterans for hepatitis C, which for Chabot has turned into sclerosis of the liver.
More than 30 years ago, the Vietnam War veteran was in the Philippines and was injured in a vehicle accident. He received a blood transfusion as a result.
For decades, he had no symptoms from receiving “tainted blood,” Chabot said, in his soft voice.
He ended up in a four- or five-day coma in March and spent a month recovering at Togus Veterans Administration Medical Center in Augusta.
Three gallons of fluid were drained from his body during his stay.
He entered the hospital at 220 pounds and left it weighing 160 pounds. Care was stepped up after that, he said.
Chabot is at a critical care stage and has been approved to receive a liver transplant, his sister, Gail Cameron said. He is at the top of the waiting list, Chabot said.
Cameron is her older brother’s sponsor. The two expect a call any day instructing them to go to the Veterans Administration hospital in Pittsburgh for tests and to meet the transplant team.
“She’s my angel on earth; I’m telling you,” Chabot said, patting his sister’s arm. “If it wasn’t for my sister, I’d have had a really bad time.”
Cameron collected more than $1,000 in donations of supplies and raffle items to put on a benefit dinner Saturday, Sept. 11, at the American Legion Hall in Livermore Falls.
The proceeds will go to helping her brother with expenses.
Chabot, who worked as a welder and construction worker for years, now spends his time on the couch or in his bed.
“People come in and help me,” he said. “I don’t know how to thank anybody. The support is unbelievable.”
“You don’t have to thank us, Joey, we love doing it,” Cameron said.
The Rev. Richard Senghas blessed Chabot and anointed him with oil blessed by the pope for the sick.
“Spiritually, I feel 100 percent,” Chabot said. “Mentally, I feel stressed. Physically, I feel like the last couple of days … I was carrying 5,000 pounds on my back.”
The worst thing, Chabot said, is that somebody has to die so that he can live.
Cameron said she believes in donating organs.
Her daughter, Rebecca Jo Chabot Clavet, died in 2002 at the age of 33 after not recovering from back surgery.
Clavet was an organ donor.
“That was the hardest thing I ever had to do was to sign those papers,” Cameron said of donating her daughter’s organs.
But Cameron recently met the man who has her daughter’s heart. He is 64 years old and lives in Massachusetts.
“I told him, I lost my daughter but gained a son,'” Cameron said. “I’m at peace now. I’ve met the man that has my daughter’s heart. … I couldn’t be any happier knowing that (the recipient) got it because he cared enough to want to meet me. I felt it and heard it.”
Now the family hopes for a liver transplant to save Chabot.
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