Health care system worked to save my life

Long ago, the people at UCSF Medical Center saved my life. They did it again last year, and those working at Kaiser Permanente San Rafael Medical Center helped get me through it.

I am in my 70s. At 26 years old, a congenital liver disease was discovered. An 8-hour surgery at UCSF saved my life then, more than 40 years ago. I was the “poster child” for surviving the disease until last year. Returning from a 650-mile bike trip, I went into Kaiser for a routine checkup only to find my liver was shot. Kaiser staff inserted a drain. I was no longer “waterproof.” As a 1976 Tamalpais High School graduate who played soccer and baseball (and later taught scuba diving at University of California, Santa Barbara) this did not compute.

Thanks to a recent transition to Medicare, I was able to choose UCSF. But I was years away from qualifying for the liver transplant list, as I was still too healthy. Starting in May 2024, I developed raging fevers every couple of weeks, all liver related. Each brought me to Kaiser in San Rafael. The nurses, doctors and staff there were concerned, professional and encouraging, but my liver was a time bomb. Thankfully, my courageous sister stepped up as a live donor. She had to pass 74 different health tests before she was approved.

On July 8, the 10-hour liver transplant was performed at UCSF. I could not have been better cared for by the surgical team, nurses and staff. Twelve days later, I was back home in Marin. Following my sister’s lead, I ditched the walker in a week for hiking poles. Two months later I was swimming, playing tennis and starting to ride my mountain bike in the Marin Headlands.

And now, I look forward to 2025, thanks to my sister, Medicare and our health care system.

— Dirk Rosen, Sausalito

Leaders must push to reopen auditorium sooner

Each day, I look at the IJ calendar of upcoming events and see no performances at the Marin Civic Center Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium. It’s so discouraging and disappointing.

The repairs and retrofitting for the auditorium are taking way too long (“‘Scandalous’: Marin extends closure of key performance venue,” Oct. 23). I strongly urge the Marin County Board of Supervisors, as well as other officials to move this project along in a more timely fashion so that the VMA can be returned to Marin residents and we can have our Marin Symphony, theater, live music and dance productions back where they all belong.

— Cynthia Sapp, Terra Linda

San Rafael leaders should stop approving huge projects

As a lifelong resident of San Rafael I am so disappointed in the “powers that be” for allowing it to be turned into what I think will be a bustling city similar to San Jose.

Known as the Mission City, San Rafael’s ambiance should reflect that. Instead, monolithic buildings are being planned. We should be reviving the feel of a city that attracts people to our place of history.

It seems to me that all the talk about reviving the downtown has gone by the wayside. Why aren’t more people making plans to make San Rafael a destination for people to enjoy?

Instead, we have a huge hotel, plans for a huge housing “box” on Lincoln Avenue and pending approval of a 13-story apartment building on Fifth Street. Are you kidding me? Revitalizing Fourth Street should be the highest priority.

— Joanne Gotelli, San Rafael

Territorial expansion plan goes way too far

I find President-elect Donald Trump’s statement that the U.S. should consider territorial expansion in the direction of Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal to be disturbing (“Trump again calls to buy Greenland after eyeing Canada and the Panama Canal,” Dec. 24).

This is certainly not typical Republican-type of thinking. Former Republican presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush never publicly considered such measures. I consider Trump’s call to be practically un-American in the “aggressive territorial leanings” category. This is not what the majority of those who voted for him in November had in mind, nor should it be.

Granted, I am not alone in calling former President Jimmy Carter’s treaty to give the canal to Panama a terrible idea. Personally, I think it bordered on being treasonous. But Trump’s idea for getting it back during peacetime (without Panama’s OK) could be interpreted as an act of war.

Greenland has been part of Denmark for more than 600 years. If Denmark was interested in selling it, there would be nothing wrong with buying it, as U.S. leaders did in buying Alaska many years ago. That’s fine, but Trump’s assertions about Canada are out of the question.

Trump has enough on his plate domestically without tackling such other issues. That is the practical objection. The moral objections are enormous: How can we decry Russian President Vladimir Putin for invading Ukraine while dreaming of this type of extraterritorial activity?

— Roland D. Underhill, Novato

National politicians don’t care about homelessness

Do we have anyone in the national political arena that is even a wee bit concerned about the growing number of homeless people in the U.S.? Homelessness is up by a shocking 18% from last year. Clearly, it is being caused by a growing unaffordable housing market and low wages.

Apparently, the response by everyone is to simply ignore the fact that more families with children, senior residents, disabled people and the working homeless are moving and living on our streets in tents or in their vehicles.

So what does this mean for our communities’ future? With the new administration in charge, I suspect federal grants will all but disappear for nonprofits during the next four years. Truthfully, I don’t think anyone coming into national office cares about the homeless.

Expect to see the usual removal of the homeless from their tents and all their belongings thrown away. Or watch them be arrested, fined and punished for, basically, being homeless. Does anyone seriously believe that having a blind eye resolves anything? This is an “SOS.”

— Sandra Macleod White, San Rafael

RFK Jr. is unprepared, but makes some good points

I understand and sympathize with mothers who feel frustrated and distrustful with a system that puts profits before children’s health.

I think the ways in which our government has defined nutrition is a sham. Many of our schools feed kids processed meals, much of which is not fresh. Some of it is laced with chemical additives. The way I see it, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is finally speaking up for them. He is challenging “Big Pharma” and the laws that led to adding fluoride to our drinking water supply.

The problem is that distrust and anger has led to a lack of critical thinking. While there has been an unfortunate history of some dishonesty with vaccines, countless lives have been saved and suffering minimized due to measles, smallpox, polio and, yes, COVID-19.

Typical of the mentality of today’s culture wars, it appears to me that COVID-19 vaccines have been lumped together with all of the other evils. Unable to separate out honest science and public health policies that have saved lives, those opposed seem to embrace “black and white” thinking. Our culture is rampant with this type of logic, and politicians are all too happy to exploit this.

Some of Kennedy’s supporters also talk about choice, yet many seem to gloss over the fact that not vaccinating their children can cause other children to get seriously ill. God forbid we have a pandemic with Kennedy in charge of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. My sense is that he is sincere, but is trapped by these same intellectual blind spots. What is sad is that the important aspects of his message get lost, and a large portion of Americans will write him off as extreme.

— Dennis Portnoy, Greenbrae