Best... Now The Worse!

Merlin the Magician

Merlin the Magician

At the Start
Joined
May 2, 2003
Messages
3,556
Location
SOUTH WALES
Why wont this guy listen and learn before his numbers really up!! I cant see him lasting... self inflicted from having too much money............. :o

history

March 2000: Severe liver damage diagnosed
February 2001: Treated for pneumonia
April 2001: Anti-alcohol pellets implanted into his stomach
July 2002: Undergoes liver transplant
November 2004: Routine operation to check on liver transplant
October 2005: Treated for kidney infection in intensive care
 
Only fair to point out that his doctor says that this latest episode was caused by a kidney infection. The anti-rejection drugs he has taken since the liver transplant apparently weaken his immune system and leave him prone to infection.
Ultimately his health problems can be traced back to booze and money but he is reported not to have had a drink for 4 or 5 weeks prior to this incident so not a direct cause this time.
 
Liver transplant, anti-alcohol pellets, pneumonia, kidney infections, George where did it all go wrong?

Just want to say that i dont want to laugh about someone who is grieviously ill, and i hope he gets better.
 
:o Garney the demon drink strikes again....................

LONDON (Reuters) - Former Manchester United player George Best's condition has "deteriorated dramatically" as he fights a life-threatening infection in a London hospital, newspapers reported on Thursday.

The 59-year-old, who has been in intensive care since October 2., suffered internal bleeding and his condition was "as serious as it can get", his agent Phil Hughes was quoted as saying in the Daily Telegraph.

Best has had an alcohol problem for much of his adult life and underwent a liver transplant in 2002 after years of heavy drinking.
His former wife, Alex Best, said she had been told that Best's condition had "deteriorated dramatically" during Wednesday, according to a BBC report.

"I am just praying that, once again, he somehow manages to pull through against all the odds," she said.

Several newspapers ran front page stories saying Best was close to death.

However, his liver surgeon, Professor Roger Williams, told the Daily Telegraph that, although seriously ill, the severity of his condition had been exaggerated.

"He is still in intensive care and will be while we are struggling with this problem," he said.

"He has not given up and nor have we."

Best's agent, doctor and a spokesman at the private Cromwell Hospital, west London, could not be reached for comment on the reports.

Belfast-born Best was regarded by many as the greatest player to come from the British Isles.

He had a dazzling but short career at Manchester United, winning the European Cup in 1968 when he was named European Footballer of the Year.

Nicknamed "the 5th Beatle", Best is widely seen as the first superstar soccer player, attracting frenzied media coverage as much for his colourful private life as his on-field talent.

His career nose-dived when he left United and he has remained dogged by alcohol problems since.

He once famously said: "I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered."
 
I don't have an ounce of sympathy for that ghastly man. I do however feel terribly sorry for the family of the person who died and gave their liver to him. They donated their loved ones organs in good faith. What a waste of a perfectly good liver. 99.9% of people given the chance of life again with a donated organ would cherish it and not abuse it in the way he has. Another more deserving person could've received it, maybe someone even died because they didn't get it and George Best did. Hundreds of people die every year because they needed a transplant and time just ran out before a suitable organ became available. Why should they die while men like him whose damage was self inflicted get the chance to waste a second go at life?
 
I've never had any contact with anyone addicted to alcohol or drugs but, while it is possible to break out of the cycle, I wouldn't see it as a lifestyle choice.
 
Originally posted by Griffin@Oct 27 2005, 09:49 AM
I don't have an ounce of sympathy for that ghastly man.
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Do you know his background or do you just not like people with problems.
 
I have to admit to feeling immensely sorry for anyone with the sort of problems he has. He is an alcoholic who has tried to give up, and managed successfully for a few years. He knows the drinking will kill him in the end, but he is unable to stop. I personally find it very sad and we have to remember drinking alchohol for some people is not a lifestyle choice enjoyed just by the wealthy, it's a serious illness.

I really hope he pulls through although his drinking will definitely lead to a premature end to a very colourful and at times, desperately sad life.
 
We have talked on here about what people would do if they won millions, I bet George would give millions to lead a normal " drink free" existance, but the demon drink has ruled and consequently ruined his life for years. Then you have the likes of "Alex Best" and the less said about her the better. When she first started going out with George, I thought she was an absolute godsend to him. Young, beautiful and caring but like so many other woman, she turned out to be just another money grabbing wannabee. Perhaps she really did help him in the initial years of their marraige, but when you marry an alcoholic, one thing is "normally" certain, the alchoholic is always going to drink. The mud slinging from both of them when they finally split, and Alex selling "her story" was very sad. I wonder if George thinks that there is actually nothing left for him to live for. No home, no car, no dogs (that he clearly adored but she took), and mostly woman that kiss and tell....desperately sad.
 
His mother was an absolutely raging alcoholic-which ultimately killed her.It is a reasonable assumption to make that his alcoholism is genetic.
A friend of mine met him in Fulham when he was off the gargle according to the papers-he was actually drinking half pints of white wine.
 
Luke, he has been doing this at that health farm in Hampshire where has practically been residing for over 18 months - owned by a friend of his.

A friend of mine was down there one weekend, and said he was sat on his own, looking really miserable just downing large glasses of wine. This was at 10 am in the morning. :blink:

Surely, no one would say that this sounds like a man with a happy existance?
 
Throw in the fact that it's blatantly obvious that the guy has never come to terms with himself and the early success of his career, and has been completely unable to cope with it ending, and you do indeed have a desperately sad situation which was always likely to end up like this. I hope he pulls through, but I'm not sure what lies ahead for him if he does.

The debate on who is worthy of transplant organs is an interesting one with no easy answers. How do you draw the line? Should all alcoholics be sentenced to death by liver failure on the basis that some of them will always end up going back to the drink after the transplant?
 
Presumably, if/when any donor organs become available for transplants, a list of compatible recipients is produced from the matching procedure and they are then graded according to need. So if you have two recips, one a former or even current alcoholic and one who leads an exemplary life, the medicos are surely going to opt for the latter!

Maybe in George's case, he was the only suitable recip on the books and so it was an easy decision to make. No matter what the reasons, I can't believe that alcoholics or drug users or anyone with another concurrent illness would take precedent over someone whose only immediate need was for a new organ transplant and who didn't have any other problems.

Or is that just being naive?
 
Gareth, you could apply this to those people that smoke and have to have major operations. Many people have operations to save their lives due to smoking (ok, not always with an organ transplant involved) and yet come out of hospital and continue smoking because they just cannot give up. Both smoking and drinking are highly addictive, and I certainly wouldn't want to be the person making decisions as to who has what operation based on whether that person will then be able to fight their addictions once they leave hospital. Some succeed in fighting their addiction completely, some succeed and then fail and some just fail completely.
 
I think it is sometimes worth putting yourself in the position of the spouse or loved one of any addict, whether it be drinks, smoking or drugs. How would any of us feel if our loved one needed a major operation but may be discriminated against receiving a transplant due to the fact the illness was caused because they smoked or drank too much.

Perhaps, it is easy to have an opinion on the outside looking in BUT I suppose many of us are lucky that this situation has never affected us directly.... or maybe it has. George Best is slightly different as he knows he has upset a great many people by having a transplant and not being able to stop drinking. He knows this BUT if you are miserable and life perhaps doesn't seem worth living at times, drinking may numb some of the pain - for a while anyway.
 
He did acknowledge the wake up call when he had his transplant and what happened after that illustrates how powerful an addiction alcohol is.

As an onlooker of todays trait on drinking, the future of many doesn't bear thinking about, the NHS will in the near future be overwhelmed.
 
Originally posted by Griffin@Oct 27 2005, 10:49 AM
I don't have an ounce of sympathy for that ghastly man.
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thumbsupsmileyanim.gif
 
but surely this applies to any form of addiction it can only be resolved by the person who wants to resolve it... its what one deems as mind over matter in my eyes........... :rolleyes:
 
I was sympathetic to his problems until he had his liver transplant. People do recover from alcoholism, and most with far less money to fund their treatment than him. He's had more than enough support from his family, the cash to buy treatment, and then the most amazing gift of all, a new liver. And still it's not enough.

While there are innocent people dying though lack of donated organs I cannot support the NHS giving them to people who have self inflicted illnesses. There is something very wrong with the current system. I have a friend who had a beautiful baby girl very prematurely. Her baby lived, but has battled all the way. Her lungs are terribly damaged and to carry on living she needs a lung transplant. She isn't going to get one because children who have lungs damaged by prematurity are not allowed to have a transplant. Yet an adult who damages their lungs through years of smoking will be allowed one. Why should an innocent four year old oxygen dependant girl die while a man who has smoked 40 a day for thirty years has a new pair of lungs?
 
Should the smoker be ignored and let die because there's a girl out there who can't get treatment?

Like I said in my first post, where do you draw the line? After we rule out the alcoholics and the smokers and the drug users, who's next? Fat people?
 
Originally posted by Gareth Flynn@Oct 27 2005, 08:48 PM
Should the smoker be ignored and let die because there's a girl out there who can't get treatment?
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You cannot suggest that a smoker should get a new pair of lungs instead of a sick child. It's not her fault she was born too soon. She's done nothing to damage her lungs. Someone who smokes knows the risks they're taking the minute they smoke their first fag.
 
But the rules that are preventing her from having a transplant are nothing to do with the smoker, so why should they be denied?
 
So why should a smoker deserve a new pair of lungs to replace the ones they destroyed yet an innocent child cannot have lungs because she was born early? What makes a smoker more deserving? The rules suck :(
 
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