Transplants

WASHINGTON - Former Vice President Dick Cheney had a heart transplant Saturday and is recovering at a Virginia hospital, his office said. An aide disclosed that Cheney, 71, who has had a long history of cardiovascular trouble including numerous heart attacks, had been waiting for a transplant for more than 20 months. "Although the former vice president and his family do not know the identity of the donor, they will be forever grateful for this lifesaving gift," aide Kara Ahern said in a written statement that was authenticated by several of the Republican politician's close associates.

For weeks, we've been flooded with sun-soaked teasers advancing the Philadelphia International Flower Show, which starts Sunday and has a Hawaiian theme. But one story line's been missing. Who knew the mayor of Honolulu is a Jersey boy or that its first lady hails from Doylestown? Meet Peter and Judy Carlisle, tropical transplants, shown here in September 2010, after he was elected to finish out the previous mayor's term. (He resigned to run, unsuccessfully, for governor.)

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.

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.

Temple University Hospital announced Thursday that it had reactivated its heart-, lung-, and heart/lung-transplant programs. The hospital stopped performing lung transplants in May, after its primary lung-transplant surgeon left. It deactivated its heart-transplant program in July because of low patient volume. Since then, it has recruited T. Sloan Guy as chief of cardiothoracic surgery and Yoshiya Toyoda as director of heart and lung transplantation and mechanical circulatory support.

The family of 3-year-old Amelia Rivera has known since her birth that the brown-eyed girl was headed for kidney trouble. And sure enough in December, a Children's Hospital of Philadelphia physician said the girl would need a transplant within six months to a year, according to her mother, Chrissy Rivera. For now, however, it won't be happening at Children's. The girls' parents say they were told last week by a different physician at the hospital that she was not a good candidate for a transplant because she was "mentally retarded.

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)

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has agreed to meet again with the parents of a disabled South Jersey girl who say the child was rejected for a kidney transplant, sparking an Internet uproar over the weekend. The hospital has declined to comment on the case, citing laws that require the protection of patient confidentiality. But in an emotional blog post last week, Chrissy Rivera said the hospital refused to perform a transplant for her 3-year-old daughter, Amelia, saying she was "mentally retarded.