About me

Introduction	Having been born with a defective aortic valve, I spent 35 years of perfect health until 1990, when I received a prosthetic valve and a pacemaker. Bad valves in the heart, especially this one, can need replacement at birth, or just wear out slowly, like mine did. A side effect of a bad valve is the change in the pressure of the blood as it shoots through the valve each heartbeat. Bad valves grow stiff and let less blood through and leak blood back into the heart, so everything works harder and the heart and its plumbing suffer. My latest visit to Mayo, to fix an infected pacemaker, included some tests to "look around the engine compartment" with x-rays, CT scans, and other tests. My aorta, the main blood vessel which exits the heart on top and supplies blood to the body, is enlarged to twice the normal diameter (over 2 inches vs. 1 inch normally), probably due to my bad valve. Aortas of this size tend to rupture, at a rate of 5-8% per year. At this size, surgery is recommended. So it is back to Mayo for Boxley. Surgery is planned for December 7th, 2006.

Introduction

Having been born with a defective aortic valve, I spent 35 years of perfect health until 1990, when I received a prosthetic valve and a pacemaker. Bad valves in the heart, especially this one, can need replacement at birth, or just wear out slowly, like mine did. A side effect of a bad valve is the change in the pressure of the blood as it shoots through the valve each heartbeat. Bad valves grow stiff and let less blood through and leak blood back into the heart, so everything works harder and the heart and its plumbing suffer. My latest visit to Mayo, to fix an infected pacemaker, included some tests to "look around the engine compartment" with x-rays, CT scans, and other tests. My aorta, the main blood vessel which exits the heart on top and supplies blood to the body, is enlarged to twice the normal diameter (over 2 inches vs. 1 inch normally), probably due to my bad valve. Aortas of this size tend to rupture, at a rate of 5-8% per year. At this size, surgery is recommended. So it is back to Mayo for Boxley. Surgery is planned for December 7th, 2006.