After Transplant, 2-Year-Old Tells Germs to Bug Off

--When he was born two years ago, Sean Halloran was diagnosed as having severe combined immune deficiency, making even the slightest exposure to germs potentially life-threatening. The ailment had killed his brother, Jason, a few months after birth and is the same condition that afflicted the Houston “Bubble Boy,” known only as David, who died last year. But, for Sean, his second birthday today in Carver, Mass., is cause for real celebration. He will literally be able to have his cake and eat it, too. “Last year, we let him stick his fingers in the (birthday) cake, but he couldn’t eat it,” his mother, June, said. “This year, he can eat it.” Sean received a bone marrow transplant from his father and is one of the nation’s youngest successful marrow recipients. His immune system has slowly begun to function. Now, Sean can pet a Great Dane named Mandi that he received just before Christmas. He can play with other children, and he eats fruit, previously forbidden because of their bacteria count. “Just the fact that he’s here, he’s normal and that he can do everything a normal kid can do is a (cause for) celebration,” his mother said. “It’s been a long haul, but he’s doing really well now.”

--Mikhail Baryshnikov will continue as artistic director of American Ballet Theater in New York but will not be able to dance for several months, a company spokesman said. Baryshnikov, 38, hurt his right knee in a dance class and will undergo surgery next week to repair cartilage damage.

--Soon after the Sears credit card arrived in the mail, Mrs. C. L. Whitt of St. Louis regretted telling a telephone solicitor she would accept it. “I really wasn’t too interested, but she had a good spiel, so I said OK,” said Whitt, a 65-year-old widow. The problem was an error on the card--there was an “S” where the “W” in Whitt should have been. And, after the card came catalogues, sale brochures, offers to sell insurance and other advertising from Sears, all addressed with the unfortunate spelling. “We sent them a legal letter saying this is causing me mental anguish and everything,” Whitt said. “Sometimes you have company and the mailman comes to the door and says, ‘Mrs. Whitt, do you think this is for you?’ ” The woman said that Sears executives at company headquarters in Chicago told her they would try to stop the incorrectly addressed mail at the post office but warned her that more might already have been sent. “We are very sorry for the error,” a spokesman said.

--The seventh annual Possible Dreams Auction in Edgartown, Mass., raised $33,000 for Martha’s Vineyard Community Services. A sailing trip with former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite went for $3,800, and the “ultimate pet home,” a miniature version of the pet owner’s home, to be built by a local craftsman, sold for $3,200. Katharine Graham, chairman of the board of the Washington Post Co. and a local homeowner, acted briefly as auctioneer, selling a tour of the Washington Post for $750. Graham made the opening bid of $200 to meet with Henry Grunwald, editor-in-chief of Time magazine, but was outbid, as that meeting plus the winner’s picture on an unpublished cover of Time, People or Sports Illustrated sold for $600.