{"id":149627,"date":"2026-05-27T23:10:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T03:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/?p=149627"},"modified":"2026-05-27T23:10:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T03:10:19","slug":"celebrating-strength-colleague-returns-to-work-after-transplant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/?p=149627","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating Strength: Colleague Returns to Work After Transplant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Featured Image: \u00a0Hecktown Oks Gift Of Life Celebration\u00a0 (Provided by Jefferson)<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Easton, Pa.\u00a0<\/strong>(May 27, 2026) \u2014 A Jefferson Health colleague is being celebrated after returning to work following a kidney transplant.<\/p>\n<p>Penny Pysher is a care continuum partner in hematology oncology at Lehigh Valley Hospital\u2013Hecktown Oaks.<\/p>\n<p>She was recently honored by her colleagues, as well as her care team, including George Rofaiel, MD, Chief of the Section of Transplantation Surgery at Lehigh Valley Institute for Surgical Excellence.<\/p>\n<p>The Donate Life flag was proudly raised outside the Hecktown Oaks campus, as Jefferson Health leaders discussed the importance of living donors. Pysher found a living donor after her colleague, Mary Ann Cali, shared her story on social media.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hope my story serves as a reminder of the incredible importance of organ donation,\u201d Pysher said. \u201cThere are so many individuals and families still waiting and praying for the opportunity that I was so fortunate to receive. One person\u2019s decision to become a donor can truly save and transform lives.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lvhn.org\/treatments\/liver-kidney-and-pancreas-transplants\">Lehigh Valley Institute for Surgical Excellence<\/a>\u00a0offers the region\u2019s only transplant program for liver, kidney and pancreas transplantation.<\/p>\n<p>Information provided to TVL by:<br \/>\nPriscilla Turbitt<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Featured Image: \u00a0Hecktown Oks Gift Of Life Celebration\u00a0 (Provided by Jefferson) Easton, Pa.\u00a0(May 27, 2026) \u2014 A Jefferson Health colleague is being celebrated after returning to work following a kidney &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/?p=149627\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Celebrating Strength: Colleague Returns to Work After Transplant<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149628,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[5718,69,482],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-easton","category-in-the-valley","category-press-release-2"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/donate-life.jpg?fit=672%2C372&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=149627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149629,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149627\/revisions\/149629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/149628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=149627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=149627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=149627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}