Gunning for the Gold after Liver Transplant

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PROFILE

Chris Klug

Back on the board

Snowboarder Chris Klug gunning for the gold after liver transplant



John Crumpacker, Chronicle Staff Writer    Tuesday, December 25, 2001

  



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Salt Lake City -- Chris Klug knows exactly where he was when he heard that football great Walter Payton had died of a rare liver disease called primary sclerosing cholangitis.



"I was driving to Salt Lake City," said Klug, the top slalom snowboarder in the country. "I was going over Soldier Pass on Highway 6, listening to National Public Radio when I heard Walter Payton died. I pulled over and cried for the first time ever."



Klug, too, has primary sclerosing cholangitis.



"I wondered what it meant for me. I was scared to death," he said.



Klug was diagnosed with PSC, which affects the bile ducts in the liver, nine years ago during a routine physical. Medication stayed the course for several years, but Klug's condition worsened in the spring of 2000 and he was placed on a priority list for a liver transplant.



"Last summer, it was pretty



tough," he said. "I was on the transplant list. I was doing OK at the beginning, but I got sicker and sicker. . . . I was on a surfing trip when I woke up one night and it felt like a dagger in my side. I knew I'd have to get serious about the transplant."



When the call came that a donor liver had become available, Klug hustled to University Hospital in Denver from his home in Aspen. He had the surgery on July 28, 2000.



"It's one of the best programs in the world for transplantation," Klug said.



"They did the first liver transplant in the world."



When he got to the hospital, surgery was postponed from that evening to early the next morning. Klug was told he could not eat anything after midnight,



so . . .



"I went to the Cheesecake Factory (in Denver). I ate my heart out," he said,



savoring the memory of an otherwise anxious evening. "I went after it. They said I couldn't eat after midnight. By 11:30 I was cramming."



After recovering from the surgery, Klug wrote a note to the parents of the donor (he doesn't know the name, age or sex of the donor). It was the least and the most he could do at the time.



"I wrote them a thank-you note four, five months after the surgery," Klug said. "I was struggling for the right words. How do you thank someone for saving your life? I just told them how humble I was, how grateful I was. I told them the only reason I'm here is because of them."



Klug, a big ol' hoss of a man at 6-foot-3 and 215 pounds, was back on his snowboard seven weeks later at Mount Hood, Ore., and is now poised to make the U.S. Olympic team for Salt Lake City. He finished sixth in the giant slalom event at the Nagano Olympics in 1998.



"Last year, I was fighting for my life and here I am going to the Olympics with a chance to win the gold," he said. "It puts things in perspective. I'm riding better than ever. I'm pretty focused on winning the gold."



Klug recalled his first time back on his board after surgery:



"It was special. I went up by myself, made some turns, just loved it. I was so grateful to be up there making turns. I wasn't worried about my liver. I was just enjoying being up there. The next day, I caught an edge and just ate it. It was fun. Probably broke up some scar tissue."



After what he's been through, Klug, 29, realizes how lucky he is. PSC, which affects about 1 in 10,000 people, mostly men, claimed among others the lives of Payton and longtime 49ers offensive line coach Bobb McKittrick.



"I was very fortunate for the first nine years," Klug said. "I was asymptomatic. I was able to go about my business. I had a cocky attitude. 'I'm going to beat this thing through diet and exercise.' Bottom line, this disease has a mind of its own and when it turns, it turns."



During his ordeal, Klug turned to basketball standout Sean Elliott, who returned to the NBA in March 2001 after a liver transplant.



"He reassured me I'd be fine," Klug said. "He said there would be some bumps in the road, but you'll be fine. . . . He's one of the best people to speak to because he returned to the NBA."



Klug said his new liver is "perfect," but he must take medications three times a day to ward off the possibility of his body rejecting the new organ.



"It lowers the immune system slightly," he said. "It just makes you a little more susceptible to colds."



One of Klug's medications costs $1,000 per bottle and comes in liquid form and must be refrigerated. He once stuck the bottle in a snowbank to keep it cold.



"I take it at lunch time," he said. "It tastes like you-know-what. You mix it with orange juice. Most likely I'll have to take it for the rest of my life. "



If Klug makes the Olympic team for the second time as expected, the event he'll be competing in will differ fundamentally from the one he contested at Nagano four years ago. Then, it was a giant-slalom format, one snowboarder at a time racing against the clock.



In Salt Lake City, it will be a dual-slalom format, two parallel snowboarders racing against the clock and each other.



"It's much more spectator-friendly watching the dual format," Klug said.



Once Klug returned to competition after surgery, it was like he had never had a life-threatening illness. He was the overall Grand Prix Alpine champion in 2000 and was sixth in the giant slalom at the 2001 World Championships.







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The Klug file

-- Born: Nov. 18, 1972



-- Birthplace: Denver



-- Residence: Aspen, Colo.



-- Height: 6-3



-- Weight: 205



-- Olympic experience: In sport's first Games appearance, finished sixth in grand slalom in Nagano.



-- Career highlights: Six career top-five World Cup finishes including two victories. . . . First at 2000 World Cup parallal giant slalom in Berchtegaden,



Germany. . . . Four World Cup podiums in 2001. . . . Grand Prix 2000 overall champion.







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About Snowboarding

-- Events: Men's halfpipe, women's halfpipe, men's parallel giant slalom and women's parallel giant slalom.



-- What's at the Olympics: Both halfpipe events were contested at the 1998 Olympic Winter Games, where the sport of snowboarding debuted. The parallel giant slalom appears on the Olympic program for the first time in 2002, replacing the two giant-slalom events that were contested in Nagano.



-- About the parallel: Parallel giant slalom features head-to-head matchups on the mountain. After the qualification round, a 16-person tournament is established and competitors battle it out on two side-by-side courses until there is a winner.



E-mail John Crumpacker at [email protected].



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