Here's someone who wants to start a fashion trend... Pretty pricey jewelry too!
Monday I got a letter from a woman who bought an Abyssinian kitten from me in 1999. My sales contract required that she drop me a note on July 4 & at Christmas so I could keep up with the Aby's health. (We kept a littermate sister.)
"Susie's" mom had written me last month that her son had had OHS in the last year. So, I dropped her a note about my MVR & my husband's MV repair.
Here's part of her letter:
"You asked about my son's heart surgery. In 1975 he was 24 yrs old. We had known for several years that he had a heart murmur, but had been told it was functional, not organic. He got a bad case of flu and the infection settled in his aortic valve and destroyed it. Needless to say, we nearly lost him. His valve was replaced (six weeks in hospital) and he has done great for all these years...with Coumadin of course. Last year he had to have an ablution due to atrial fibrillation. That didn't solve it, so they elected to replace the valve. The surgery went well and he was in the hospital about a week and is doing wonderfully now. He wears the old valve on a chain around his neck!!! The surgeon thinks he's wild!!!! They put in a new pacemaker as the old one had died years ago. To think that the old valve replacement lasted about 30 years."
Both surgeries were done in San Diego, Calif.
Only in California would anyone think to wear an old mechanical heart valve around their neck!! (I apologize to those of you from Callyforeneye-aye.)
But ... that's not bad -- 30 years from an older generation heart valve. And who knows if it would have kept working if he had not had any a-fib.
Monday I got a letter from a woman who bought an Abyssinian kitten from me in 1999. My sales contract required that she drop me a note on July 4 & at Christmas so I could keep up with the Aby's health. (We kept a littermate sister.)
"Susie's" mom had written me last month that her son had had OHS in the last year. So, I dropped her a note about my MVR & my husband's MV repair.
Here's part of her letter:
"You asked about my son's heart surgery. In 1975 he was 24 yrs old. We had known for several years that he had a heart murmur, but had been told it was functional, not organic. He got a bad case of flu and the infection settled in his aortic valve and destroyed it. Needless to say, we nearly lost him. His valve was replaced (six weeks in hospital) and he has done great for all these years...with Coumadin of course. Last year he had to have an ablution due to atrial fibrillation. That didn't solve it, so they elected to replace the valve. The surgery went well and he was in the hospital about a week and is doing wonderfully now. He wears the old valve on a chain around his neck!!! The surgeon thinks he's wild!!!! They put in a new pacemaker as the old one had died years ago. To think that the old valve replacement lasted about 30 years."
Both surgeries were done in San Diego, Calif.
Only in California would anyone think to wear an old mechanical heart valve around their neck!! (I apologize to those of you from Callyforeneye-aye.)
But ... that's not bad -- 30 years from an older generation heart valve. And who knows if it would have kept working if he had not had any a-fib.
