Ron's Posts

Emily - Oh yeah - the family was most generous to take her (and me) in. I didn't ask if she could go into the hospital and it didn't even occur to me to ask as I was totally focused on the surgery and recovery. It was nice to have her around for the recovery. My surgery was in January and she had a real experience with deep Chicago snow. She was born on a New Mexico ranch. Wonder if she knows that I'm part cow now....

That's great, I hope your recovery is going well. I understand about focusing on your surgery, it's all I could think about after being told of needing surgery. I had mine in January too, what did you have done? It's freezing cold here and snowing at the mountains (just found out my Surgeon took her kids there for the Holidays), is it snowing where you are? Is she an inside dog when it's cold?

Hi Emily They replaced my aortic valve. It turned out I had a highly calcified unicuspid valve. The surgery made a huge difference for me and I'm thankful each and every day. Its pretty warm here, though the worst part of the summer seems to be over. It'll get over 100 F (38 C) today. Hopefully that should be over in a week or two. Please send some snow and cold this way :) Snoozer is lucky - she has her own doggie door so she comes and goes as she pleases. When its real cold she doesn't go out much though. Same when its really hot. But in between she hangs out in the backyard much of the time and just looks around. Hope you warm up soon. Good to hear from you.

Hi Emily. That is fantastic aftercare and I was very pleasantly surprised to receive that phone call from Nicole. I've been visiting my cardiologist every 6 months. She gave me an echo in June of 2015, 5 months after surgery and another echo in June of this year. I'll see her again in November and we'll go from there. I ended up choosing a bovine pericardial tissue valve (Edwards model 2700 TFX). I call it my "moo valve", or just "mooeey". When Dr. McCarthy examined me a month before my surgery, he gave me the choice between the moo valve and a mechanical valve. One deciding factor for me is that I'm a geologist. The tissue valve might make it a bit easier on me when I have to clamber on the rocks. Its definitely a trade off, but so far its working well which makes me quite happy. Of course my friends ask me if it came from a longhorn cow. What type of valve did you get? From the photo you recently posted it seems as though its working really well.