From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Subject: Re: Valve replacement Surgery Friday 5-17
Date: 22 May 1997
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.cardiology

In <1997May21.124515.18903@jarvis.cs.toronto.edu> bae@cs.toronto.edu
(Beverly Erlebacher) writes:

>In article <Pine.SUN.3.96.970520210839.17485A-100000@jupiter>,
>Dean  <n74i@unb.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> nurse discovers that she has been offered the 2mg sodium diet instead
>>> of the regular cardiac diet, so this change is made. The nurse cannot
>>> hear the clicking of the new mechanical valve -- even with the
>>> stethescope.
>>
>>Your mom is lucky that she can't hear the valve. I have a St. Jude
>>aortic valve prosthesis which ticks loud and clear. I don't need to feel
>>for my pulse, and in a quiet room neither does anyone else. However, I'm
>>not complaining: it works well, and my wife and I have gotten quite used
>>to it after 8 years. I just have to explain to people that "No, I don't
>>have a loud watch..." Please wish her all the best.
>
>A friend of mine chose a porcine valve replacement partly because of the
>noise factor - a friend of hers had to give up poker after getting a
>mechanical valve!


   Yeah, like the joke about the dog that was taught to play poker, but
didn't do so well because of tail-wagging with good hands....

   Had a patient once whose wife grew so used to the clicking of his
mechanical valve that she woke up once when she couldn't hear it.  He'd
passed on.

                                      Steve Harris, M.D.