Kaua‘i native Scott Brown, who is alive today because of a heart transplant earlier this year, goes back to the scene of the surgery today to discuss his transplant experiences with members of the University of California at Los Angeles
Kaua‘i native Scott Brown, who is alive today because of a heart transplant earlier this year, goes back to the scene of the surgery today to discuss his transplant experiences with members of the University of California at Los Angeles Heart Transplant Team.
There, he will likely once again meet up with Dr. Jaime Moriguchi, a cardiologist and like Brown a Waimea High School graduate.
While Brown was a patient and Moriguchi a co-leader of UCLA’s Heart Transplant Team, the two discovered their Waimea High School and Kaua‘i similarities.
Brown, son of Gloria Keown of Kalaheo, is a member of the Waimea High School Class of 1986. Moriguchi, son of Mr. and Mrs. Roy Moriguchi, formerly of Waimea and now living on O‘ahu, is a member of the Waimea High School Class of 1973.
They met earlier this year when Brown was near death, given just 24 hours to live, the result of cardiomyopathy diagnosed in April of last year. The heart of a 17-year-old boy now beats inside Brown, 36.
“An autoimmune disease called sclaraderma attacked my heart,” said Brown. “They did not know what caused the cardiomyopathy until after my transplant, when they were able to inspect my heart.”
When told that Dr. Moriguchi’s parents were on Kaua‘i, visiting daughter Cheryl Grady of Lihu‘e, their granddaughters and other relatives, Brown asked officials at The Garden Island to say “howzit” to Roy Moriguchi, whom he met at the annual patients-versus-doctors softball game in Los Angeles earlier this year.
“If you didn’t know” the team that pounded the doctors was made up of transplant patients, “you sure couldn’t tell,” said Roy Moriguchi. The patients were in great shape, he said.
Brown was raised on Kaua‘i, went to Koloa School and Waimea, and moved to Murrieta, Calif. around 10 years ago.
“On a routine visit from the co-director, Dr. Jaime Moriguchi, of the Heart Transplant Team, we discovered that we were both from Kaua‘i and we had both graduated from Waimea High School. When leaving my room that day, Dr. Moriguchi said, ‘I will have to take care of the Kaua‘i boy,'” Brown said.
“We have since become friends, and enjoy sharing stories about Kaua‘i while he performs my heart biopsies. I will occasionally bring in some ‘Kaua‘i grinds’ for him and the other doctors,” Brown said.
Brown has been the subject of several magazine, newspaper and TV news stories, most focusing on his “remarkable recovery. I competed in several mountain bike/running events six months post-surgery,” he said. “I would love for my local paper to run a story of one Kaua‘i boy saving the life of another Kaua‘i boy. Dr. Moriguchi is at the top of field, and is from Kaua‘i,” Brown said. “He is an awesome, humble guy, and I would like the rest of Kaua‘i to know it,” he said, taking the opportunity to thank Moriguchi for his efforts at keeping Brown around so he can enjoy his wife and children.
“Good things can come from that place. It’s definitely a place to be,” Brown said of Kaua‘i. Naturally, Brown is a fan of organ donors, noting that one person’s organs can help up to 50 other people in need.
Brown’s Kaua‘i family includes stepfather Bob Keown, and brothers Christian Keown, Robby Keown and Jason Brown and his family. “Also, a lot of my friends are still there on Kaua‘i.
“I work for a company named Flex Fitness Inc. which manufactures commercial exercise equipment. I am the controller,” he said.
For more information, please see www.teamheartthrob.com.
Paul C. Curtis, associate editor, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or pcurtis@pulitzer.net.
