Heart Transplant Patient Recuperates
by Rod Hughes
Surgeons at San Jose’s Calderon Guardia Hospital are satisfied with the recovery of Mairen Alvarez who received a heart and lung transplant at the hospital Jan. 17. The patient apparently shows no sign of rejecting the new organs and Monday was removed from the respirator.
Hospital Director Luis Paulino Hernandez predicted Tuesday that he patient may be able to return home in three weeks. The young woman is able to recognize her relatives and communicates with gestures.
Meanwhile, two other Costa Rican patients, also tributes to modern medicine, returned home from California. They are former Siamese twins, Yurelia and Fiorella Rocha-Arias, separated by multiple surgeries beginning in November at Stanford University’s Lucile Packard children’s Hospital at Palo Alto. Completely the pin-up patients, the two-year-olds pushed toy carts and swatted at soap bubbles while cameras snapped. They had been joined at chest and abdomen but more seriously shared a liver and their hearts were attached as well. Packard Hospital footed the bill, estimated at $2 million. Their prognosis is excellent, said Dr. Gary Hartman, head of the separation surgical team, and already the twins are developing separate personalities.