Heart Transplant

The Corvette convertible in which Leah Young rode so stylishly yesterday was the hard, shiny crimson of a candy apple, and it made two passes through the gantlet of cheering youngsters from the Sacred Heart School. But that wasn't the best thing. Little silvery stars dotted the crown of white rosebuds resting on her head, and Leah drew herself upright as its pink and blue streamers fluttered down her back. The red helium hearts yearning skyward from their tethers on the spindly mimosas along Jasper Street were all for Leah.

So distressing was the news that he needed a new heart that Jeffrey Murray would not let anyone around him, not even his doctors, use the word "transplant. " " 'T' was all they could say," said Murray, 23, in a recent interview. He did not want visitors during his stay at Hahnemann University Hospital because when visiting hours were over, "I felt like they were leaving, and I was staying," he said. "I wasn't really stable a lot of the time. It's a real shocker to go through something like that.

Shaking hands and smiling broadly as he greeted guests, Police Chief Richard H. Moore looked like a politician on a comeback yesterday afternoon at the Whitman Square Fire Hall. Moore was not seeking votes. But he has made a definite comeback. Less than five months after undergoing heart transplant surgery, the 46- year-old lawman returned to work full time. The police department marked Moore's return with a three-hour luncheon, replete with a cake decorated with (non-edible)

When the cast comes together for the finale of the Narberth Community Theater's Damn Yankees and the chorus belts out, "Ya gotta have heart, all ya really need is heart," Harry Corvese softly sings his own private refrain . . . "I gotta new heart, I gotta new heart. " On stage, he plays the earthy, funny, corrupting Devil, going by the name Applegate, who offers mortals the fulfillment of their dreams in return for their souls. In real life, he got his wish without losing his soul.

A teenager awaiting a heart transplant died Saturday, three months after he caught a cold - the suspected cause of his ailment. Eric Renegar, 17, of Clifton Heights, Delaware County, died at 9:08 a.m. Saturday at Hahnemann University Hospital with family members at his side, hospital spokeswoman Phyllis Fisher said yesterday. The youth was a junior at Upper Darby High School, where he had hoped to play baseball in the spring. At his high school, a baseball and a purple cap with the initials UD in gold had been set aside for him. Connie Renegar, his mother, traced her son's illness to a cold that was treated with routine medication in early November.

The first full-squad drill of the Phillies' 1985 spring training was winding down early on a sun-washed March 3 afternoon. The half-dozen catchers working at the Carpenter Complex asked if Larry Rojas, 43, the Phils' minor league coordinator, would hit them some pop flies. Rojas, a heavy smoker who was carrying 40 extra pounds on his 5-8 frame, obliged. "He's awesome with the fungo bat," catcher Darren Daulton was saying yesterday morning after an emotional reunion with the man he says helped turn him from a scrawny 150-pound former high school wrestler into an athlete fitness coach Gus Hoefling feels is as strong as any man on the Phils' 40-man roster.

The heart-liver transplant being pursued by Gov. Casey is a rare and risky procedure so complex that it could involve more than 20 hours in the operating room. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where Casey will be operated on if organs become available, has done just four of the procedures - and only a handful have been performed elsewhere, transplant experts say. Of the 2,500 people in Pennsylvania awaiting donor organs, Casey is the only one who needs both a heart and liver, said Howard Nathan, executive director of the Delaware Valley Transplant Program.

A plastic party hat on his head and a noisemaker in his hand, Richard Mattingly hobbled from his hospital bed toward the New Year's Eve party. His fellow heart transplant patients clogged the hallway outside his room at Temple University Hospital. They maneuvered their ever-present IV poles between two tables laden with low-cholesterol food. They were feeling good. There had been a transplant that morning and reason to hope there would be more soon. It was New Year's Eve, a night when young people with healthy hearts get drunk, drive fast, and smash up their cars - a promising night for people awaiting transplants.

Dawn Parker went into the hospital last month to have a baby. This weekend, she'll be going home - with a new baby and a new heart. "So far, everything has been going fine," said Parker, 29, as she sat at Temple University Hospital yesterday recuperating from her heart transplant while cradling month-old Brian Jr. in her arms. At her side were her husband, Brian Sr., their daughter, Brittany, 3, and the children's grandmother, Sue Simpson. Dawn Parker, of Boothwyn, Delaware County, was perfectly healthy when she entered Pennsylvania Hospital to deliver Brian.

STAR JONES is a lawyer, author and celebrated TV personality who is perhaps best known for her larger-than-life personality and "tell it like it is" candidness. She once tipped the scales at more than 300 pounds, underwent gastric-bypass surgery 10 years ago and has maintained her weight loss. But in 2010, at age 47, she faced her biggest health crisis so far when she was diagnosed with heart disease and had open-heart surgery to repair her aortic valve. Now a proud spokeswoman for the American Heart Association, Star was in Philly recently as the keynote speaker at the 10th annual Go Red For Women Luncheon.