Cheney to get heart defibrillator battery replaced
 Vice President Dick Cheney will have his heart defibrillator's battery replaced Saturday, CNN reports.
Cheney, 66, had his defibrillator implanted in 2001 at The George Washington University Hospital.
"During the vice president's annual physical examination in June, testing of his implantable cardioverter-defibrillator indicated that the device's battery has reached the level where elective replacement of the device is recommended," Megan McGinn, deputy press secretary for Cheney, told reporters Friday.
An implanted defibrillator senses when the heart's electrical activity has misfired and induces a quick zap to jolt the heart back into a normal, healthy beat. For it to be replaced, the entire pacemaker must be removed.
Cheney has had "four heart attacks, quadruple bypass surgery, two artery-clearing angioplasties and an operation to implant the defibrillator," according to AP.
Doctors discovered the former Halliburton chief had a deep venous thrombosis in his left leg in March, though in April said the clot was shrinking. In 2005, Cheney had surgery on his legs to repair an aneurysm.
The White House, among other agencies, often releases information of a sensitive or negative nature on Friday afternoons, as Saturdays have the lowest circulation of newspapers.
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