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flapjacket-deactivated20130204 asked: I'll start off saying that you are beautiful! My momma is a cardiac nurse, and she's working with a brilliant little boy named Emmett right now. Are you ever getting a transplant? Have you ever used the Berlin Heart? I'm just curious. And you also have a brilliant taste in music, I must say.
Thank you! That is very kind of you to say.
I have never used an artificial heart, nor have I ever been a candidate for transplantation. Transplantation is considered in patients with my condition when they are in heart failure that is so severe it is unlikely the patient’s heart will recover, and/or when the malformations causing the decline in heart function are complex enough to be inoperable.
I did, however, have a valve transplant. My major surgery at 18 months included taking out the pulmonary valve I was born with and replacing it with a donor valve. My new valve, which I got two years ago, is porcine (pig tissue).
I get asked about transplantation a fair bit actually, which is funny to me because it’s never once in my life been mentioned to me by a doctor in the context of my care. It’s not really a common treatment for my condition. But the two heart surgeries people know about are bypass and transplantation. But the reality of heart disease, especially congenital heart disease, is a lot more complicated, and includes a common toolbox of medical procedures and surgeries that most people haven’t heard of. The heart is an incredibly complex organ, and there are a lot more ways to treat it than most people realize.
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coeurensabot posted this
