{"id":27690,"date":"2018-09-17T10:46:55","date_gmt":"2018-09-17T15:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/?p=27690"},"modified":"2018-09-17T17:54:48","modified_gmt":"2018-09-17T22:54:48","slug":"edwards-lifesciences-patient-day-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2018\/09\/17\/edwards-lifesciences-patient-day-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Did 100 Patients &#038; Care Partners Get a Standing Ovation at Patient Day 2018 at Edwards Lifesciences in Irvine, California?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Something special recently happened. \u00a0More than 100 patients and their care partners traveled to Edwards Lifesciences, a leading heart valve manufacturer in Irvine, California, to meet each other, to share their stories and to inspire action within our community \u2013 the heart valve patient community.<\/p>\n<p>This day is appropriately called\u2026 Patient Day!!!!!<\/p>\n<p>Luckily, Edwards hired us to film the wonderful moments of this unique event that included meet-and-greets with the heart valve assembly teams, panel and group discussions, a campus and manufacturing tour and more. \u00a0One of my favorite parts of the day was watching patients meet the Edwards employees who made their valves by hand.<\/p>\n<p>Ready to see what happened at Patient Day 2018? Watch the video below\u2026<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1DYmYBEFMC8?showinfo=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Thanks to the patients and caregivers who traveled \u2013 from near and far \u2013 to participate in Patient Day. And\u2026 On behalf of our community, I want to extend a mighty thanks to the entire Edwards team for empowering the patient voice at \u201cPatient Day 2018.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.edwards.com\/patient-events-and-opportunities-registration-form\">Sign up now to receive information about Patient Day and other opportunities to use your voice to help other patients like you and me!<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Keep on tickin!<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n<p>P.S. For the hearing impaired members of our community, I provided a written transcript of the 2018 Patient Day Video below: <\/p>\n<p>Malea Potter:  When they told me I needed to have surgery, at first it was kind of surreal. I panicked, and it was scary, and we had to work through some things.<\/p>\n<p>Al Celentano:  I couldn&#8217;t breathe. I couldn&#8217;t breathe. They rushed me to the hospital. They took me away in an ambulance. They put the mask on my face. I was scared, to be perfectly honest with you. My wife was my biggest booster. She comforted me, and I said okay, maybe we can get through this. My coordinator for my medical team told me about Patients Day and about Edwards Lifesciences. She said, \u201cI think you&#8217;d be a good candidate to go and let them hear your story.\u201d I says, \u201cYou got to be kidding.\u201d Everything she told me is true.<\/p>\n<p>Mike Mussallem:\tWhen patients come together, it creates a bond. It creates kind of a community, and it&#8217;s a chance for those of us that are inside the company to hear from patients on what their journey was like so we get a better understanding on how to better serve them in the future.<\/p>\n<p>Malea Potter: Patient Day means, for me, empowerment.<\/p>\n<p>Al Celentano: Everybody here at the Edwards Lifesciences has been fantastic from the top down, all the folks working in the laboratory, all the people sewing these things. It&#8217;s just overwhelming. It&#8217;s an overwhelming experience.<\/p>\n<p>Malea Potter: Talking to the team that made my heart valve was very incredible.<\/p>\n<p>Al Celentano: I first heard we might have an opportunity to meet them, I said, \u201cNah, that can&#8217;t be. How do they know who sewed my valve?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Edwards Worker:\tIt&#8217;s nice to meet you.<\/p>\n<p>Al Celentano: The team said it&#8217;s on record these are the people who sewed your valve, and when I saw them, I couldn&#8217;t get over it. Well, again, you guys are great. Thank you.<\/p>\n<p>Jane Celentano:\t Words don&#8217;t come to me easily, but they gave me my husband back. I mean, I just thank them from the bottom of my heart for giving him back his heart. Beautiful job.<\/p>\n<p>Malea Potter:  One thing I would say to the team that worked on my valve is a very deep and heartfelt thank you for all the hours that you spent and all the stitches that you made, because it really has changed my life. It&#8217;s not just my life but the people&#8217;s lives who are in my life.<\/p>\n<p>Al Celentano: For the people at Edwards Lifesciences, we feel like you&#8217;re part of our family now. It&#8217;s been a wonderful experience.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/..\/Images\/patient-day-edwards-collage-2018.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"314\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-27699\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-patient-stories"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}