Then, the stoic doctor, with the red nose, rapidly spewed a flurry of foreign words at me: calcification<\/a>, leaflets<\/a>, narrowing valve stenosis, regurgitation, normal ejection fraction<\/a>, blah, blah, blah, blah.<\/p>\n “Enough medical mumbo-jumbo!” I remember thinking as Dr. Bad Bedside Manner continued to tell me that death was lurking in my future. “Please show me what you are talking about!”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I can’t help it. I’m a visual person. I often need to see things to understand them.<\/p>\n For that reason, the cardiologist who I would never see again, grabbed a fake, plastic heart and pointed to the problem area – my aortic valve. He then began promoting open heart valve replacement surgery and the various biological \/ artificial valve types available to me – pig valves<\/a>, cow valves<\/a>, human valves (aka homografts) and mechanical valves<\/a>.<\/p>\n The discussion referenced above occurred in three minutes. Again, I was in mini-shock<\/em>.<\/p>\n Considering there are many new patients and caregivers at this website, I figured you may be experiencing what I experienced… A need to see a picture, a diagram or an illustration of a heart valve replacement.<\/p>\n![\"Diagram](\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/Images\/mitral-valve-replacement-picture.gif\")
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