Media Recognition

I love having the opportunity to speak about my experience with heart disease and open heart surgery, as well as what life has been like since surgery.

Here is some of the media appearance that I have made so far.  

Please feel free to reach out with any requests for speaking opportunities.


 





Heart Valve Choice

Patient Success Story: Heart Valve Choice






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mentally Preparing for Surgery

Image
A ny surgery can cause distress.     We often worry about how our bodies will be altered and how comparably they will function after an operation. Recovery times may also cause us to worry about what we will do with our downtime and how we will stay sane during a time when we might not be able to do the activities that make us happy. For the past decade, I have been an avid rock climber with such a strong passion for my sport that it drives every life decision I make. During that decade, I have also had 3 major surgeries including a heart surgery and one ACL replacement (I had 2 other ACLs replaced in the previous decade). The thing that both of these procedures had in common was that they took me away from my passion and forced me to see who I am when I can’t be who I have been.     My heart surgery required 5 weeks of heavy restriction followed by another year of building back to my pre-surgery abilities. My ACL had a very similar timeline, which I am just finishing up as I write thi
Read more
Image
My Heart History When I was born, there was a complication.  My Aorta valve, the one responsible for pumping oxygenated blood from my heart into my body, was too narrow.  In fact, it was so narrow that I needed an emergency surgery to keep me alive.  Luckily, doctors knew what to do.  They placed a flexible tube into my femoral artery, traced it all of he way to my heart, stuck a balloon into the narrow valve, inflated the balloon, and widened the narrowing enough to keep me alive.  This is called a  Balloon Valvuloplasty .  One cannot make this kind of thing up. This emergency surgery was meant to last me until I was fully grown, at which point I would need my Aortic Valve replaced. So I waited.  I had yearly check-ups until I was 18, the point when docs said I would need a replacement valve.  18 years old came and went and the doctors decided that 21 was my new goal.  I made it to 21 years of age with no issue so we decided to keep waiting.  This game continued until last ye
Read more

What It's Like Living with the Noise of a Mechanical Ticker

Image
Before having my Aortic Valve replaced, I was curious about living with the noise of a mechanical heart valve ticking away in my chest 24 hours a day for the rest of my life.  Would the ticking noise drive me crazy? In fact, this questions guided my decision making when choosing a valve.  I knew that of the mechanical valve options, the St. Jude was slightly louder than the On-X valve.  Although this was a very small consideration overall, it was definitely on the list of positives for making my valve selection.   A stock photo of the On-X Valve Now that I have had a mechanical valve ticking away in my chest for the last 4 years, I can say with some authority that it has only made life better!  For the most part, the noise from the valve is something that I do not pay attention to.  It easily blends into the background noise of the day.   So when do I hear it? As I sit in a quiet room to write this post, especially after consuming a bowl of ice cream, I can hear the valve opening an
Read more