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Will Dick Cheney's new heart make him a gentler, mellower guy? Some medical experts think it's possible.
The 71-year-old former vice president has been recovering after Sunday's heart transplant at a hospital in Northern Virginia. News reports say he's been able to stand and is receiving support from his family. Cheney has had five heart attacks, the first at age 37, and has been on the transplant list for 20 months.
Cheney is also a feisty political figure who political observers say reshaped the power of the vice president's office during his two terms as President George W. Bush's second-in-command. Medical experts say that heart transplant patients often undergo a change of philosophy, personality and values once they recover.
World's first synthetic organ transplant
"There are experiences where patients who undergo the procedure, just because it is such an existential procedure, have a different appreciation of the small things in life, and a certain sensitivity they haven't had before," said Mario Deng, medical director of UCLA Medical Center's heart transplant program.
Deng recalled one patient, a "type-A" personality and corporate litigation attorney at one of the top law firms in the nation -- who changed big-time after his heart attack and transplant.
"He was always bottom-lining his agenda and other team members," Deng said. Afterward "he realized there are so many more value systems than this one that he is living. Not only does it impact his relationship to his wife and kids, but switches gears and puts his expertise to other causes, more altruistic ones."
Deng says that the heart is a special organ, one that has tremendous cultural, symbolic and psychological meaning. As for changes to Cheney's personality, "you cannot predict what is going to happen," Deng said.
In fact, one expert says its possible that personality traits of the heart donor -- his or her musical tastes, food preferences or other memories -- could actually resurface in Cheney. This theory of "cellular memory" was developed by Gary E. Schwarz, professor of psychology at the University of Arizona.
In 2000, Schwarz studied 10 such cases and published a paper on the subject in the journal Integrative Medicine. While the sample size was small, Schwartz says the unusual examples of donor's preferences, memories and tastes being revived in the recipient "cannot be explained as being the side effects of the medication or the stress of surgery. They also cannot be explained by recipients getting information about the donors from other sources."
Over the years, there have been well-known cases of this kind of transplant transferrance. In 2008, 47-year-old Claire Sylvia wrote about her intense cravings for beer, Snickers and fried chicken -- things she had never liked -- after receiving the heart of an 18-year-old motorcycle accident victim in her book "Change of Heart."
Still, Schwarz, who has drawn some criticism for his work with mediums, has one caution for those hoping for a kinder, gentler Cheney. He says most of who undergo these personality changes "are open to receiving that information and acting on it."
"I can't speak to whether Mr. Cheney would have that or not,” Schwarz said. “But is it scientifically possible? Absolutely."
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Leave a Comment:
Dream on.
DREAM OHH-N! DREAM OHH-N! DREAM OHH-N! AAAAAAAAaaAAaaAAaaAAaaAAaaa...
Passable Steven Tyler impression? Y/N?
Y
Hahaha! Not bloody likely.
Did they implant the stake yet?
.
It all depends on who the donor was. He'll hopefully be a kinder and more humane individual.
What if it came from Bin Laden?
(only joking)
The question is whether Cheney's new heart will reject him.
His heart wasn't the problem......it is his total lack of humanity and lack of a soul..........(oh and that 666 branded on the back of his neck lol)
I can't figure out why it too 20 months to find him a new heart, I mean, lumps of coal are pretty easy to come by.
Think Cheney relishes being an SOB. So if it makes him a nicer, gentler person, we're in for another round of Cheney hospitalization stories -- either he'll have a stroke over being a nice guy or he'll go looking for a new heart to turn him back.
The Evil Darth Cheney will blacken this heart too. They should of just hooked him up to a sump pump.
Will it make him nicer? No, but it will prolong our agony!!
This guy reminds me of the Frankenstein Monster cobbed together with the parts of the dead to wreck havoc and terrorize the country side.
No wonder CNN is going out of business and has less viewer than competing infomercials.
Now, he will smile and tell you what a beautiful target you are when he shoots you in the face.
If Media Matters-MSNBC wants to go there, then perhaps giving Pres. Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi a heart transplant (right after they get a brain infusion). Then they might not be such nasty "democratic party symbols" and they might actually have a clue...
Sad. your picture portrays Obama as a snob. One of the least snobby people in the world. Of course, he's offered up more legislation that has been touted by Republicans and has been called a socialist for it. Maybe he does need a brain "infusion" for trying to take the middle road.
sick of - where, what legislation? Edicts and dictates, that is what he offers up
The healthcare law individual mandate for one. That is was the republicans touted in place of Hillary Clinton's efforts on healthcare reform.
Sorry, it's history and it seems the republicans only look forward, finding that ignoring the past is best.
Sick: He lectures people as if he is (with apologies to the movie Spaceballs) "the everlasting know-it-all." The majority of the left is blindly in awe of him. Personally, I don't think there's a lot of substance there, only empty ideology from a man who voted "present" and is afraid to do political dirtywork himself. (such as handing over healthcare to Reid and Pelosi).
That "middle road" you suggest he takes all the time is located politically between Chairman Mao and Konstantin Chernenko. The road is "middle" to you and your ilk only.
Portraying Pres. Obama as a snob is mild compared to what the left does to republican presidents--a characteristic that this article typifies. Have a great day.
Your comments are nothing more than the far right talking. Stop slurping up the drivel and think for yourself.
Care to comment on the individual mandate? It was supported by various republicans, even up to 2006.
Sadly, the further the republicans swing to the right, the further divided this country becomes and the worse the rhetoric from the right. The only hope for this country is from the center, which, despite your denials, is where most of Obama's policies come from.
Take the beam out of your own eye sick. Are your posts really original and not a repetition the ideology of the left? Be honest with yourself!
Good comments on OutsideTheBeltway . com. Look under obama-moderate-90s-republican/.
I advocate for the middle, you advocate for the drivel.
Keep telling yourself that, sick: You are a true believer. Your very name betrays your ideology. Being in the middle, by definition incorporates ideas from both sides. What parts of the right do you like?
As for me...ideas from the left that I like: I'm OK with a progressive tax rate, and higher rates for higher incomes, provided that everyone has skin in the game (everyone pays income taxes). I'm also for raising the cap level for social security taxes... That's being in the middle sick. You aren't there and Pres. Obama certainly isn't.
Calling Obama the equivalent of Mao, etc. is exactly a far right comment. He has put forth more legislation that has it's origins in republican ideology (albeit ideology from a time where the term RINO didn't exist and a moderate republican wasn't an outcast or non-existent) - the heathcare law is a perfect example, with many elements proposed by republicans and is even modeled on a law from the supposed republican presidential contender.
My comments on Newsvine are readily available for review and only a far right freak would call them anything other than Centrist.
Not much difference between mega-evil and ultra-evil. Dick is as Dick does... and Dick has done such Dick things.
gee, i was liking the body odd, but NOW THAT THEY ARE POLITICAL, I'm not going to watch Discovery channel or Body Odd ever again. Assinine judgemental idiots
I doubt it will make him nicer but even if it does I still wouldnt go hunting with him
Hahaha! Well said, Johannes!
That heart should have gone to someone younger; that greedy, old bastard still leaving his evil mark on the world.
they say the grinches heart grew three sizes that day
Would MSNBC have posted this headline if it had been Maxine Waters who had the transplant? Or Rahm Emannuel? Or Rachel Maddow?
A headline like that wouldn't have made any sense, now would it? (Well, maybe Rahm, sometimes.)
You would have a point if any of the people you mentioned were also WAR CRIMINALS like DICK!
This was not a heart transplant, it was a heart IMplant - they opened up and found he didn't have one to begin with....
One could hope - but too little, too late, I fear
I'm not holding my breath!
Fat chance. In any case the damage is done. For those of you who believe in hell, Cheney's problems are just beginning.
We can hope!
What I meant to say is....We can hope and pray that he sees the light!
True......however that light in this case is most likely hellfire(totally a joke.....sorta)
We all wondered that too!
Are we in Kansas? Cheney got a heart and what's next Bush will get a brain, and maybe Obama will get a spine...... we're off to see the wizard .................
I hope it got his heart from a liberal who has better skills at hunting!
Will it make Cheney nicer?
No. Because he is a total A.H.!
It is not the heart (a muscle that pumps blood) that makes you a nice/good person -- it's in the brain -- and there is no such thing as a brain transplant... not yet ...
Tisk, tisk, tisk...have some pity, the man is a humanbei...scratch that. How 'bout them Packers?
man i thought you libs were supposed to be sympathetic and compassionate people and all i read here is hate and bitterness from every posting comments here. I hope no one in your family ever needs a transplant because with all these negative comments you will never be able to care for that person after the surgery.
No one in my family (that I know of) mass murdered, so I think we're good..........
Liberals are the biggest hypocrites. They praise the same actions of their own political heroes that the castigate the right for. They are the kings and queens of spin.
I'm waiting to see if the heart rejects him.
I seldom laugh out loud, but I just did a spit take all over my screen.