Williamston man in need of new heart, liver, fighting through medical struggles

WILLIAMSTON, N.C. (WNCT) — A Williamston man is in need of a heart and liver transplant and he and his family are now asking for help from the community.

As a teenager, Thomas Bass had it revealed to him that he had a heart murmur. “I had the heart surgery and then a few years later, I had another heart surgery to correct some stuff that was still going on,” Bass said.

Weighing around 400 pounds, Bass later had a gastric bypass sleeve surgery to help with losing weight. After losing more than 250 pounds, he still needs a new heart and now, also, a liver.

“I have left side and right side heart failure and I had atrial flutter and afib,” Bass said. Doctors said Bass needs a strong heart before undergoing the liver transplant.

“The heart is really unhealthy even though I’m becoming healthy, but that’s almost at the back of their mind’s because I have end-stage liver disease,” Bass said. “So now my time is being shortened once again. Even trying to get healthy isn’t really helping. The inevitability of getting a liver transplant is now part of our day-to-day life.”

His wife, Lauren, said it’s very hard seeing her husband go through all of this. “Whew, it’s been emotional. I’m sure it’s hard for him being sick. I feel like, at least for me, of course ’cause I’m not,” Lauren Bass said. “It’s harder being the person watching the person, you like, love the most in life struggle and you can’t do anything to help them.”

The family is trying to keep up with the hospital bills and other expenses as well. Since the closing of Martin General Hospital, they’ve had to drive hours to Durham for appointments.

“There’s a lot of financial struggles with it because he has never worked, because he’s always been so sick,” Lauren Bass said. “I’ve been the only income. I work from home part-time because I mean driving to Duke once or two times a week is just so time-consuming.”

Even with all of the struggles though, Bass still tries to find a way to inspire his family. “He’s always been the first person to start the ball rolling with everything that we’ve done in life,” Lauren Bass said. “From quitting smoking cigarettes to now losing weight and he did everything first and then we were like ‘Wow!’ We see how much better, he has a better quality of life and how much it’s positively impacted him. We wanna do that too!”

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