I got the Inratio because that is what the valve company (St Jude) give out for free here in NZ.
Other valve companies give out the other one I think.
At NZ$1000 per machine plus $160 per 12 strips, I was glad to get it free - and it certainly makes life easier when travelling. I just text or...
Never had a choice - I went in for a repair to an aortic dissection, they found a bicuspid aortic valve so they decided to replace it while I was on the table!!
I got a St Jude mechanical. Apparently made from pyrolitic carbon - same as rocket nose cones or something!!
Ha - I can imagine!
Fortunately we have taxpayer funded health care here in NZ so no such surprise - although I was told it would have cost around NZ$60,000 if I had had to pay.
6 years on and I have more holes in my short term memory than a Swiss cheese.
It's not that 'can't quite remember something I know I know' sort of problem - more a complete black out that makes things (such as chores and to do things) simply 'vanish' - only to reappear in a flash hours after...
My most pleasant surprise - apart from actually waking up after the surgery - was finding out that the "asthma" I had had for 37 years simply disappeared after the surgery. 6 years on and there is not even an inhaler in the house!
Least pleasant was the lasting medication and appointments, the...
I've been on it for 6 years. I never got to choose whether to have an artificial valve - I went in for emergency surgery to repair an aortic dissection and they found that I had a bicuspid aortic valve when they did that - so they fixed it at the same time.
I woke up thinking I had swallowed a...
I was admitted as an emergency by Ambulance and diagnosed with a dissected aortic aneurysm.
Whilst on the table they found that I had a BAV (unknown to me or anyone else at that time) and decided mid-procedure that they would change it for a mechanical replacement to avoid repeat OHS.
Was in...