Kidney Transplant

Temple University Hospital and Crozer-Chester Medical Center announced yesterday an alliance they say will allow kidney-transplant patients who live in Delaware and Chester Counties to receive most of their care close to home. Under the agreement, people who need kidney transplants can receive their evaluation, pre- and postoperative treatment at Crozer, in Upland Township. The transplant surgery itself would be done at Temple in North Philadelphia by surgeons who work at both Temple and Crozer.

San Antonio Spurs star Sean Elliott was in stable condition yesterday after undergoing a kidney transplant, receiving a healthy organ from his brother, Noel. "The kidney's functioning well," said Francis Wright, who performed the transplant at Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital in San Antonio. "Sean had no problems at all and Noel had no problems. " Wright said Elliott could be released next week. Doctors have said it would take two to three months before they'll know whether Elliott, who plays guard and forward, could try to continue to play basketball, but he has said he hopes to return to the game.

Erma Bombeck, 69, was reported doing well yesterday after a Wednesday kidney transplant at the Medical Center of the University of California-San Francisco. The humor columnist, who's been undergoing four-times-daily dialysis at her Paradise Valley, Ariz., home has waited for a suitable donor for several years. Her kidneys were damaged by anti-cancer drugs she started taking in 1990 after a mastectomy. LOCALLY CONNECTED Vet Hollywood song and dance man Donald O'Connor will join actress Ann Blyth to do a benefit for West Philly's St. Ignatius Nursing Home April 30 at the Bellevue Hotel.

Alonzo Mourning is scheduled to undergo kidney transplant surgery tomorrow in New York, two sources told the Miami Herald yesterday. Mourning announced his retirement from basketball on Nov. 24 because of complications from kidney disease and has been actively searching for a matching kidney donor since. The New Jersey Nets, Mourning's last team, confirmed the impending surgery. Mourning has received several offers from potential donors in the past month, and it is believed he is receiving a kidney from one of those donors.

Alonzo Mourning underwent kidney transplant surgery and was in good condition. The surgery at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia Hospital yesterday came less than a month after Mourning retired from the New Jersey Nets because of a kidney disease. The donor, a family member, also was in good condition. "Alonzo asks that all those who offered to donate a kidney to him extend that generosity to others who are waiting for transplants," his agent, Jeffrey Wechsler, said in a statement released after the surgery was completed.

Joe Torre's brother could undergo a kidney transplant in the next couple of months after tests determined two of his children are a match for the procedure. Former major leaguer Frank Torre, the brother of the New York Yankees' manager, needs the operation because of medication he has taken since receiving a new heart more than a decade ago. "He's excited," Joe Torre said yesterday. "It could be a month, it could be 2 months. There are other tests that have to be taken, not as far as matchups, for whoever the donor is going to be, physicalwise.

Doctors call him the Miracle Kid. His mother says he's blessed. But Sharrod Williams says he's just happy to be alive. A year and a half ago, 10-year-old Sharrod beat the odds by surviving the horror of bacterial meningitis. Most children die from the disease. He lived, but not without a struggle. Because the disease struck so quickly, it shut down the oxygen supply to his limbs and did irreparable damage. To save his life, his gangrenous legs were amputated above the knees and his arms were amputated at the elbows in October 1992.

John Fuscellaro Jr. has lived his life the way he has performed on the athletic field - in a heroic fashion. His list of athletic achievements and admirers continues to grow. For instance, last year he played quarterback for the first time and ended up making the all-star team while competing for Gloucester Township's 130-pound team. Now a junior at Highland, the 5-foot-6, 126-pound Fuscellaro recently went on a power surge that belies his smallish frame. While playing for Blackwood's 16-and-under Del Val League team, he hit two home runs in a game twice in a week.

A 20-year-old Chester County felon will die without a kidney transplant and, by delaying a prison sentence yesterday, a judge gave him a chance to obtain one. Lamont Alan Greenidge of West Chester has had kidney problems since he was 9 and requires dialysis three times a week, defense attorney Laurence Harmelin said. But Greenidge's medical problems did not stop him from getting in trouble with the law. On Nov. 2, police said Greenidge got into a verbal altercation with Benito Alamo Sr. on Matlack Street in West Chester.

IF YOU DON'T know the name Amelia Rivera, you will soon. Her story is going viral as I type this. It's no wonder. Amelia is the embodiment of our ongoing moral debate about whom we let live, whom we let go and the line that separates the two. It's a line that, thanks to medical technology and uneven access to its life-saving powers, continues to blur and shift. Three-year-old Amelia ("Mia" to her Stratford, N.J., parents, Chrissy and Joe, and her big brothers, Joey and Nathan)

ILEEN SUSAN Green was a fighter. Raising a child as a single mom with little help made her a fighter. Consciousness of the many political and social ills that needed addressing made her a fighter. Teaching students whom other teachers had given up on made her a fighter. Battling multiple health issues, including kidney failure, lung cancer, infections and several broken bones made her a fighter. And she was a fighter to the end. "She was always positive and upbeat," said her daughter, Kelly Lisa Green.

The math never made any sense to Crystal Perkins. Medicare paid more than $100,000 for her kidney transplant and for three years covered the bulk of the $2,400-a-month drug that kept her body from rejecting the organ. But then her Medicare coverage expired. For a few years she managed to keep up her medications, paying out of pocket or begging at pharmaceutical companies and hospitals. But eventually she started skipping doses, and by 2009, the kidney was failing and had to be removed.

A HANDFUL of sheriff's officers took their usual post around the defendant's table in a Camden County courtroom Thursday morning, ready to protect, subdue or simply watch over whoever took the seat there. But this time, they were waiting for one of their own. Officer Thomas W. Smith did not show up to court, though, and wasn't at his home later when another sheriff's officer showed up in a patrol car. Smith, according to a letter written to his attorney by the Camden County Prosecutor's Office, was accused of taking drugs from the department evidence room, of which he was in charge, and giving them to several Camden prostitutes in exchange for sex, often in full uniform.

A handful of sheriff's officers took their usual post around the defendant's table in a Camden County courtroom Thursday morning, ready to protect, subdue or simply watch over whoever took the seat there. This time, though, they were waiting for one of their own. Officer Thomas W. Smith did not show up to court, though, and wasn't at his home later when another sheriff's officer showed up in a patrol car. Smith, according to a letter written to his lawyer by the Camden County Prosecutor's Office, was accused of taking drugs from the department evidence room, of which he was in charge, and giving them to several Camden prostitutes in exchange for sex, often in full uniform.

CARLTON CORPREW tried to maintain his composure and not come off like a bad person. But a few people, and one man in particular, kept making negative comments and, finally, Corprew felt compelled to make a pointed comment. "I just kept hearing horror stories. That's all this one guy, especially, was giving me," Corprew said. "I reached the point where I had to tell him, ‘I don't mean any harm by this, but if it's not something positive, I don't want to hear it.'?" That exchange took place late in 2010, a few days after Corprew, an important basketball player for University City High in the 1981-82 season, received a kidney transplant and was undergoing a short stint of follow-up dialysis.

Aaron Bradley got to sing his favorite song at his own funeral Saturday, and when they played the tenor's recording of "Defying Gravity," it brought nearly everyone in the First Presbyterian Church of Moorestown to tears. Afterward, the singing went on for hours at a reception with an assist from a Rutgers-Camden choir and impromptu karaoke from everyone else. For Trish and Andrew Maunder, who had given Bradley a home in 2004 and were making plans to adopt him, the celebration felt just right.

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia apologized Wednesday for the way it had communicated with the parents of Amelia Rivera, the 3-year-old disabled girl whose parents want her to have a kidney transplant. In a statement released with the approval of the Riveras, the hospital expressed regret for how it had handled the situation. Joe and Chrissy Rivera gained national attention in January when they said a hospital physician had recommended against such a transplant because of her mental disability.

A caption Tuesday with a photograph of the start of renovations at Dilworth Plaza incorrectly described the sources of funding for the project. The $50 million project is primarily funded by a $15.5 million state grant and a $15 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, both made to the Center City District, which will construct and maintain the plaza. In addition, $5 million is coming from the city; $4.3 million from SEPTA; and other funds from foundations and corporations.

The parents of 3-year-old Amelia Rivera, the disabled girl who was initially rejected for a kidney transplant at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, now say the hospital is willing to consider such an operation. The Riveras said they met with medical personnel at the hospital for one hour Friday, after which they were given instructions on how to proceed with a possible transplant - including how to have family members tested as potential donors. Chrissy and Joseph Rivera said they were not told whether their daughter, who goes by the nickname Mia, would be medically eligible.