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00 per year you can figure that anacetrapib s price will probably be somewhere in that range but one pair of good walking shoes will cost you 85 shoot let s splurge a bit and get one of the more expensive brands that will cost us 130 if we just use them for our high intensity walks they ll last a while if we use them as our everyday shoes we may need a new pair in a year cost of drug 2 800 per year cost of shoes possibly 260 per year more likely to be less exercise is cheaper than drugs and a lot more fun tags anacetrapib cholesterol dr john m drugs exercise hdl ldl walking posted in chd congenital heart defect congenital heart disease dr john m uncategorized walking leave a comment behind those doors november 21 2010 karen thurston chavez is co founder of the support group broken hearts of the big bend bhbb and a good friend we met when i spoke at bhbb s congenital heart defect symposium last year and we trade e mails at least once a week keeping up with each other and discussing the latest issues affecting the heart defect community karen s blog has a most unusual post you need to read in september she was able to shadow her son s heart surgeon for a day at shands children s hospital in gainesville florida but then something she didn t expect happened i figured i would sit in on conferences and consultations he had with families whose children were having would be having or just had open heart surgery to repair their congenital heart defects i guessed that i would sit and watch while he handled administrative work i was right i did all those things i did not think i would step into his operating room so i m sending you over to her blog for today s post karen will help you get scrubbed in and then walk you into the operating room as dr mark bleiweis performs open heart surgery shadowing my son s heart surgeon tags broken hearts of the big bend chd congenital heart defect dr mark bleiweis open heart surgery shands children s hospital surgeon posted in cardiac kid cardiology chd congenital heart defect congenital heart disease heart mom heart surgery uncategorized 1 comment celebrate red and blue day november 19 2010 what sort of day was it a day like all days filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times you are there 1953 november 29 1944 dr alfred blalock took one final look into the incision it looked right he had been operating for years surgery shouldn t make him nervous anymore but this operation did he had completed this same surgery on a dog only once and no one had ever tried it on a human before let this work watch for bleeding his assistant reminded him as he started to remove the clamp blalock nodded ready to drop the clamp back into place if the new connection leaked but not too hard too much pressure and you crush the pulmonary artery do that and you kill the patient his partner dr helen taussig stood near the head of the table heart surgery had been her idea she had just as much riding on this operation as he did probably more she had assured both him and the child s parents that the theory behind this operation was sound the little girl s heart defect caused cyanosis she was literally suffocating from lack of oxygen taussig s theory was to reroute a blood vessel to the lung and increase the amount of oxygenated blood available blalock s assistant vivien thomas had designed the operation and tested it all three of them had their reputations on the line and the irony of it all was if things went bad he d probably be the one to suffer least blalock was the chief of surgery after all taussig was an almost deaf female doctor who ever heard of such a thing and thomas was a black man who official job description wasn t supposed to bring him anywhere near a scalpel much less doing experimental surgery if things went wrong they would be the ones hung out to dry so let s not allow things to go wrong blalock thought as he inspected his work again i m removing the clamps he finally said reaching into the open wound he gently touched the new connection i can t feel any flow blalock said disappointed after a long pause taussig spoke al the baby s lips are a glorious pink color stunned the surgeon watched as the child s blue lips slowly turned pink before that day in 1944 heart defects were almost always fatal usually during the first year of life occasionally a child was lucky enough to survive to late childhood or the early teens but that was only under the best of circumstances and that lucky child had no strength no energy and very little quality of life even after that first surgery the blalock taussig shunt there was still only one operation designed to relieve the effects of one heart defect the odds weren t good but chders now had a chance and sometimes one chance is all you need chd survivors our families and our friends celebrate november 29 as red and blue day participating in red and blue day is simple just dress in red and blue clothing you don t have to donate any money though if you choose to your favorite chd support group would be an excellent choice and you don t have to volunteer to do anything simple as can be if anyone compliments you on your good taste or your color scheme just be prepared to explain why you chose those colors a heart defect is an invisible disability many of us don t even look like we have a health problem some of us are cyanotic but you have to look really close and know what you are looking for to see it but november 29 is our day so wear red and blue and let s stand out tags blalock taussig shunt chd congenital heart defect congenital heart disease johns hopkins red and blue day vivien thomas posted in alfred blalock blalock taussig shunt cardiac kid chd congenital heart defect congenital heart disease heart surgery helen taussig history of cardiology johns hopkins hospital tetralogy of fallot vivien thomas 11 comments run the race november 18 2010 wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses let us run with patience the race that is set before us hebrews 12 1 foot on the line lean forward ready set go out of the starting gate not with a blast but with a whimper unusually enough i can t seem to get my feet under me can t find the rhythm instead of a smooth stride i stumble and trip and almost fall at the 5 12th of a mile mark of the race i m losing badly i never expected to win but i wanted to make a decent showing let everyone see that i gave my best but the crowd is really screaming and they seem to be yelling at me yeah if i were watching i d be yelling at me too but no they are cheering and the worse my feet seem to tangle the more they shout encouragement hey i recognize some of these people that s dr blalock vivien thomas is next to him shouting my praises as i struggle by i get my balance back slowly and soon i have a smooth motion going gotta pick it up all i m seeing is the backs of the other runners dr taussig waves at me as i pass my feet get tangled up again at mile 10 and i go down coughing blood as i fall somehow i get back up hard to do when your legs don t want to do what you tell them they re working again but still a little weak by mile 11 and then i really start cooking steady and smooth chasing the pack down i m not gaining that much but at least i can still see them then at mile 22 i fall flat on my face i can t even get up keep moving a little girl yells never stop so i m dragging myself pulling myself along with my hands and this same little girl yelling at me to keep going try harder i can do it she s familiar but i don t eileen saxon the first one of us slowly i get to the point i can push as well as pull myself then back to my feet and into my familiar half walk half stumble i get my stride back until mile 36 when i go down again i can t feel my right side at all come on you aren t going to let a stroke stop you another little girl asks it s gracie come on now you cheered for me i ll cheer for you but you lost i think as i feel my energy start to drain away i m losing too i lost gracie says reading my mind but i fought that s the important thing so once again i m digging in pulling along with one hand keeping a forward motion and not much else slowly i get the feeling back in my right side and then i am able to stand and shuffle and eventually run i m doing ok had a bump and a bruise about half a mile back but i just passed the 44th mile mark i wonder who i will see next and how i will react if it is one of the other runners i have met on this journey and i wonder how long this race is the longer the better and if i can help it i m not going to go down on the course i hope to cross the finish line standing posted in uncategorized 3 comments a weighty matter november 17 2010 some not so wonderful news to report children with congenital heart disease chd are more and more overweight that s not good while cardiac kids may be slow to add weight when they are young most of us catch up later we may be a little bit thin but our weight is acceptable but this study contends that once we catch up we keep going the reasons are many and varied and usually just as applicable to heart healthy kids video games fast food you ve heard all this before i am sure but chders need to keep their weight under control says the funky heart who could stand to lose a few more pounds himself every extra pound we carry means that our hearts have to work harder to pump blood through our body that may not be a problem for the average kid but our hearts are already bruised and beaten up they have been cut apart and stitched back together again we need to make it as easy on them as possible so how much should you weigh the research article cited above mentions the body mass index bmi as one of its comparison tools the bmi is ok for use as a comparison but don t use it as your source for your proper weight ask your cardiologist for advice about a good weight range to stay in many people contend that the formula used to calculate your bmi number is flawed you have to wonder if they may not be on to something since according to their bmi numbers former president george w bush is a fatso and actor tom cruise five foot seven inches tall 160 pounds is plump so find out what your healthy weight range is and do what you can to keep it there be sure to discuss any exercise plan with your doctor first overdoing it and damaging your heart while you are trying to take care of yourself defeats the entire purpose after all go outside and play don t think about exercising just go have fun take a walk through the neighborhood at your own pace get fitdeck exercise playing cards fitdeck junior is great for cardiac kids providing that their cardiologist gives their approval it s all fun and games but they are really exercising shhhh don t tell em the secret i often remind my readers that chders are living longer and better lives as modern medicine develops new ways to overcome our heart defect but it doesn t just happen we have to contribute to our own well being tags chd congenital heart defect congenital heart disease exercise fitdeck fitness health obese overweight posted in cardiac kid chd congenital heart defect congenital heart disease exercise heart surgery illness 1 comment backscatter scanners and pacemakers november 16 2010 as you may remember i almost flew to atlanta for the recent heart walk but changed my mind when my parents decided to attend too while getting my gear organized for the trip i thought about the new backscatter full body x ray scanners being installed in airports how do those things interact with pacemakers the transportation security administration tsa recommends that those of us with pacer power avoid the metal detectors and since i got my pacer i m not cool around large magnets after all the doctors use a magnet to set my pacemaker it stands to reason that another magnet could scramble it so i pull out my plastic card and tell the tsa agents that i have a pacemaker and request a hand patdown and just avoid all that but what about the new scanners friend or foe not knowing i called my pacer lab the short answer we don t know the longer answer there hasn t been any testing done on pacemakers yet it s not really safe to get a human volunteer to test the scanner we don t think anything well happen fred but just in case sign this release form so the next best plan is a series of tests usually involving calibrating a pacemaker taping it to a mannequin and sending him through a scanner simulating what would happen to a traveler who happens to have a pacemaker if the pacer checks out you run the test again and again and again to see if going through the scanner multiple times will affect the pacer then you run the test yet again with longer scans and higher radiation levels to see if that affects the pacemaker and you keep repeating these tests to eliminate the possibility of a fluke reading wow that s pretty involved it would probably be better if we could borrow a scanner for a few weeks but i doubt that is going to happen tsa like to keep things close to the vest and i bet that goes double for their newest secuity tool so i figure that the best thing to do if you have a pacemaker is not to risk it just keep asking for a hand search thankfully my home airport is so small that they only have three gates it will be quite a while before they get a backscatter scanner tags backscatter chd congenital heart defect full body x ray pacemaker transportation security administration tsa posted in chd congenital heart defect congenital heart disease congestive heart failure defibrillator heart surgery humor pacemaker research 3 comments older entries click here to follow me on twitter click here for free updates to your feed reader click here for a free e mail subscription to adventures of a funky heart blogroll about the author acha president amy verstappen interview adult congenital heart association acha annabelle baskets 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