Word: fae
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...days of battling to preserve a fragile life, Dr. Leonard Bailey was visibly spent. His voice trembled and broke with emotion last Friday as he faced the press at Loma Linda University Medical Center in California to provide the epitaph for the dark-haired infant known as Baby Fae. "Today we grieve the loss of this patient's life," said the 41-year-old heart surgeon. That life, he insisted, had not been in vain. "Infants with heart disease yet to be born will some day soon have the opportunity to live, thanks to the courage of this infant...
...marked by more than its share of controversy. Doctors challenged the wisdom of using an animal heart when a human organ might have been preferable; animal lovers protested the sacrifice of a healthy monkey for what they saw as medical sensationalism; and others questioned the circumstances under which Fae's parents had consented to so drastic a procedure. Nonetheless, Fae's struggle for survival converted many skeptics and won the hearts of millions of people. Her progress and setbacks?virtually every beat of her simian heart?were avidly followed. Hundreds of Americans sent cards, flowers, even money to the infant...
Though no one expected Fae's survival to be easy, her death last Thursday night came as a surprise. The child, who was born with a fatal defect called hypoplastic left heart, had received the heart of a seven-month-old female baboon on Oct. 26 and made steady progress for the next two weeks. In a touching videotape made just four days after surgery, Baby Fae was seen yawning and stretching, seemingly a normal infant in every respect. By the second week she was no longer dependent on a supplementary oxygen supply or intravenous feeding. (Read "Baby Fae Stuns...
...eased the strain on her breathing with a respirator and resumed intravenous feeding. By Wednesday of last week Surgeon David Hinshaw told a packed auditorium of reporters at Loma Linda that "she is in the process of turning around. Signs of rejection are reversing right down the line. Baby Fae is holding...
...late as 7 p.m. Pacific time on Thursday, just two hours before she died, a hospital spokesman was reporting that the child was "hanging in there." In fact, Baby Fae was experiencing kidney failure. For several days, the child's urine output had been declining?an indication that the kidneys were not functioning properly. This put other organs in jeopardy and ultimately contributed to heart failure, Bailey explained at the press conference. It was not clear if Fae's kidney problem was due to her drug regimen, the surgery or rejection, which can trigger the failure of a number...