Making Deadline With A Transplant

What comes next seems, to Hayes, so much more fraught with peril. What happens the first time that Peter -- whose immune system is suppressed by the antirejection drugs he must take -- catches a virus? Hayes can clean the house vigorously, he can try his best to protect his little boy, but he can't stop it from happening, he can't predict when it will happen, he doesn't know what effect it will have when it does.

"I worry much more now than I did then," he says. Both Marcos and Mazariegos stress that the levels of immunosuppressants used are lower now, and Marcos says Peter can have very close to a "normal life."

Herridge is doing paperwork to apply for Medicaid for Peter. The family has good health insurance but, as a social worker advised her, in Peter's case it will run out. That's the reality of being a transplant patient. She's also overwhelmed by the stacks and stacks of letters and e-mails of support and encouragement she received after her Fox colleague Greta Van Susteren broadcast parts of the family's story on her show.

Then there are the people who donated money to the liver center at the hospital in Peter's honor. And Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff -- whom Herridge snagged for his first interview after he was appointed -- who personally called to give her his best wishes.

So many letters to write, so many people to thank.

"Mostly," she says, "I'm trying to decompress and get my mind out of the Peter-sick mode and into the Peter-well mode.

"Oh, and trying to get some sleep. Peter never sleeps now!"

Maybe not at night. But, at the moment, he's tucked into a portable crib next to the kitchen table, sleeping the sleep of a tired little baby boy. His chest rises and falls gently, his now-chubby cheek pressed against the sheet.