SO THAT OTHERS MIGHT LIVE . . . : A RECENT TRIPLE TRANSPLANT RECALLS THE PROGRESS AND SACRIFICE - BOTH PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL - MADE IN COMBATING DIABETES. ONE VICTIM IN PARTICULAR IS NOT FORGOTTEN.

Byline: Marlene Barnett Vallen

Last August, I read of a diabetic miracle when a man had a triple organ transplant. Remembering my own experience with diabetes, I thought back to 41 years ago and a time when my husband and I took my five-month-old daughter in to have stitches removed following a hernia operation.

It was then that the doctor told me to have my 23-year-old husband, Allan, a victim of childhood diabetes, come in for a checkup as he was looking very pale. I had noticed his skin color and had suspected something wrong, but not specifically.

Two days later, after his examination, the doctor informed me that he was sending Allan to see a kidney specialist. He warned me not to be too hopeful about the results of that meeting.

I tried to prepare myself for either surgery news or for more in-depth home-care information, but I never dared imagined that the diagnosis I would hear from the specialist could be so devastating.

The feeling of shock, dismay and total helplessness is as real to me today as it was then, for he straightforwardly said that Allan had but five years to live, and that by age 28 I would have to say goodbye to him.

How could I accept that? I simply couldn't!

I turned to UCLA and the experts there for help, but dialysis, a new kidney treatment then, was not yet available. Next I contacted the Mayo Clinic. They advised me not to hope for much as they had very limited dialysis equipment and there was a long waiting list.

Then there was one major decision to be made. Should we tell him or not? It was a time in history when people didn't often disclose those kinds of things, and knowing his personality (He once told me, ``If I ever think I am going to die, I will kill myself first''), it felt much better not to tell him. I thought, instead, to give him a chance to live his life, do the things he most wanted to do, and hope for some miracle along the way that would save him during those next five years. His doctor agreed with me, so the decision was made.

The miracle we hoped for was just what I read about in August. The triple organ transplant is a life saver and delays the disease while a search for a cure is continued.

Allan had experienced an unusual childhood when his father held a second place winning ticket on the Irish Sweepstakes. The family became immediate celebrities of Glendale. They built a beautiful home, known as the ``Showplace of Glendale,'' and Allan and his sister, Ruth, had a future of money enough for college and security they'd never dreamed of.

Allan's desire was to either be a musician or a baseball player, but when his mother died unexpectedly, shortly after the big win, Allan's system went into shock and he developed juvenile diabetes, slipping into a coma from which he miraculously survived.

I remember him telling me of lying in the hospital, practicing both insulin shots in an orange and pretending the orange was a baseball, as he tossed the orange into the air, one day, he accidentally hit the doctor with it. The doctor promptly turned to Allan, smiled, and said, ``Now that's what I call really practicing your shots.''

Allan lived exactly five years as predicted. But, in that time, he accomplished all his dreams. In spite of his illness, prior to our marriage, he had been a filler in some of the big bands and traveled with Perez Prado's Band. Throughout our marriage, he enjoyed his talent with his saxophone and clarinet, and played locally with a band.

He never became a baseball player, but his grandson (whom he never met) appeared in the Daily News as a talented Little League player in the West Valley recently.

Evenings, he attended classes and just before he died, he graduated from college. Meanwhile, working days, he became interested in IBM's new concept (computers), and began at Lockheed, bringing large computer boards home evenings to practice wiring.

Shortly before he passed on, he became one of the first IBM computer programmers in Los Angeles. Were he alive today, who knows how far he might have gone in the computer field.

Mostly, though, with this new transplant event and wonderful news of a hard working scientific crew, aiming toward a diabetic cure, his life might have extended until today.

The man who received the triple implants (kidney, liver and injected pancreative islet cells) is 64 years of age. Allan would have, coincidentally, also been 64 years of age this year.

With today's improved at-home care and advise to diabetics, they are living longer and longer. Allan's nephew, Paul, is in his mid-forties, and a childhood diabetic since the same age as Allan when he got it, is doing well. A successful attorney, husband and father, Paul is athletic, energetic, and lives a full, normal life.

On behalf of my late husband, Allan, I want to say how happy I was to read the great news about the triple implant, thanks to the people who have made this possible.

The annual Walk for the Cure, benefiting the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, will take place in Griffith Park on October 27. It is a great reminder that work continues in this field and hope for a cure goes on for all of us.

MEMO: Marlene J. Vallen is a free-lance writer living in Studio City.

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Photo: Just married: Marlene and Allan Valen in 1952.