Gear review - St. Jude mechanical aortic heart valve

What? A aftermarket heart valve review? Seriously?

That's right kids, I'm actually qualified to review such things. Just about 3.5 years ago (March 2009), I had my fleshy, defective aortic valve replaced at the tender young age of 35. In it's place, I got a nice shiny new mechanical valve from the good people at St. Jude Medical.

This is what resides in my chest.

My leaky valve was well on it's way to putting me 6 feet under. My Dr. said maybe a year before I experienced congestive heart failure and death. So, as terrible as the surgery was (and it was no joy ride), I'm very glad to still be around and enjoying life, friends and family awhile longer. In fact, it may sound trite, but this was maybe one of the best things to ever happen to me. Not only did it extend my life, but I found a renewed joy in experiencing it. I never ran races, hiked big mountains or climbed rocks before. Now I know life is short and you have to get out there and live it while you can.

Who wants to see an x-ray of this madness? I thought so.

The ring in the middle is the new valve. The "butterflies" are metal wires
holding my sternum together.
The long  strings are the wire pace maker leads. Good times!

Since the surgery my heart has shrunk, in a good way. The leaky valve had put me on the high end of a normal sized heart, as it was being overworked. Now I'm nicely in the middle range of normal. My only real complaint is the noise. It's like having a clock ticking away in your chest sometimes. You get used to it, but sometimes if I'm having a hard time falling asleep I'll hear it and I'll have to flop around to find a spot where my heart will settle deep into my chest and muffle the ticking. Usually this is flat on my back. But it's fun at parties. I've had several people tune in on it and say "I can hear you ticking!".

Also, as a result, I have to take warfarin, an anticoagulant, to be sure there's no nasty blood clots and/or strokes in my future. This hasn't been a problem for me however. I've gotten a couple good cuts and bumps and haven't noticed any increased bleeding or bruising. It took several months to really get it dialed in, but it's been steady for a good while now. The trick is to be consistent in your diet. If you decide you're going to start (or stop) eating a bunch of vegetables, then you'll want to keep a close monitor on it. I rarely have to have a blood test more than once a month and I don't even really feel them anymore.
In contrast, while I was in the hospital, they were doing blood draws every 6 hours... for 8 days!

So there you have it. The first of the big obstacles I've overcome. Hopefully some of you stumbled across this post searching for info on a mechanical valve that you, or maybe a loved one, needs for an upcoming surgery. If so, poke around a bit and see that open heart surgery isn't an end, but a beginning to many great things to come. You only get one shot at this thing called life (unless you're a Buddhist, I guess), so get out there and enjoy it!

Thus ends the Big Obstacles motivational post for the month. ;)