A New Liver and the Right Care Make a Rutgers Patient Feel Young Again

The liver transplant center at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School is one of just two such units in the state
 
Mati Muñoz is 65 years old – filled with the enthusiastic energy that comes with a second chance at life. A decade ago, says Muñoz, who lives in Woodbridge Township, N.J., her liver was being destroyed by hepatitis C, a viral disease she believes she contracted as a girl in her native Cuba from a poorly sterilized needle used in a medical procedure.

“My coworkers said I looked like a ghost,” Muñoz recalls. Her symptoms included insomnia, depression, bloating, nausea – and an especially nasty decline in mental function caused by blood toxins that were degrading her brain.

Muñoz went on a registry to receive a liver transplant and over the next two years her symptoms intensified as she waited for a suitable donor.

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