Updated 10:30 p.m. ET
(CBS News) Former Vice President Dick Cheney received a heart transplant on Saturday, his office announced.
A statement from the former vice president's office said the 71-year-old is now recovering in the intensive care unit of Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Va., outside Washington.
The statement said Cheney had been on the transplant list for 20 months and did not know the identity of the donor.
"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," the statement read.
Cheney, who served as President George W. Bush's vice president from 2001 to 2009, has a long history of heart problems. He suffered his first heart attack at age 37 and his fifth in 2010. In 1988, he underwent quadruple bypass surgery and has had several other heart surgeries since then, including multiple angioplasties and the implantation of a pacemaker.
No Pulse: How Doctors Reinvented The Human Heart (http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-02/no-pulse-how-doctors-reinvented-human-heart?page=all)
When he finally showed up eight months later, Frazier held a stethoscope to his chest and was stunned to hear no heartbeat at all. None. Even more-sensitive instruments would have found nothing resembling a pulse. The young man’s heart continued to flutter weakly, but it had effectively shut down. Although the HeartMate II had been designed to assist the heart, not replace it, in this case it seemed to be doing all the work: not just helping the left ventricle push oxygenated blood to the body, but pushing the blood hard enough to flow through the body, then back through the useless heart to the lungs, through the useless heart again, and into the pump to complete the loop and begin the process all over again. The reason the young man had never come back for follow-up, he told Frazier, was that he’d felt perfectly fine.
Thoratec won FDA approval of the HeartMate II in 2008, and surgeons have now installed continuous-flow LVADs alongside the hearts of some 11,000 people worldwide (among them former vice president Dick Cheney).
My dad had a close friend that had a heart transplant way back in the early 80's. He had an excellent 12 years on it and then another 2 or 3. The last 2 or 3 weren't bad. With the advance in that type thing now, Dick may be a thorn in DUmmie sides for years to come.
Suck that lemon DUmmies..... :lmao:
Lets hope so.
I wished Dick Cheney was President. He was a good speaker for one.He is a good American. The left has so much hate for him he must be good for America.
He is a good American. The left has so much hate for him he must be good for America.
I am glad to read that Mr. Cheney received a heart transplant, both for the fact that Cheney's life will be fuller and the fact that it makes all of the Affordable Health Care Act (AKA: Obamacare) advocates flying-mouse feces insane :banghead: So delicious!
-Trentamj
At age 71, Obamacare would have denied to cover it.Those are the death panels owebuma denied ever having. If you told the lib/dem/socialists this is Cheney's 3rd transplant, they would have a cow.
Mr. Cheney being home is great news. He is a trooper.It is great news. Cheney has done more than enough for his country, and his countrymen.
..."Why in DU-ville they say
The Cheney's small heart
Grew three sizes that day"...
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UvgUHAtKbIE/Tv1StC1hX9I/AAAAAAAAAK0/j93Guu9-lOU/s1600/grinch.jpg)
:rotf: Forget it, DUmbasses!!! Darth Cheney is still an irresistible force for crushing all that is stupid and leftist in the universe. :rotf: :yahoo: