I just looked up online how many times the average human heart beats in a day. The number I got from two sources as 100,000. When you load all of those into a year, it totals around 35 million.
Luckily for me, the faithful pig valve inserted into my heart five years ago on Tuesday has flapped along with no problems.
I feel very blessed for that and happy that I can continue to enjoy my life and my family as much as I can.
I’m told that my valve is good for several more years. And the good news is that the new procedure for installing an artificial valve in a human heart is now even less invasive than before. Las time, they cut open my chest, removed the heart, sliced it open and sewed in the replacement valve. The process now involves no more external incisions and uses a robitic device to insert the valve in the heart through a vein in the leg.
So here’s to another year of oinking along. And below is the best cartoon I’ve seen about this otherwise traumatic experience.
aero-cordero.com 