; Your Health
option. “Everything was going down
quickly,” Beverly Thurman, 64, recalls.
After years of progressive heart disease,
her kidneys and other organs, starved
for blood, were beginning to fail. Because she had antibodies in her bloodstream that would attack foreign tissue,
a heart transplant wasn’t an option.
When doctors at Ohio State University
medical center suggested the heart pump, Thur-
man didn’t hesitate. “I was so sick, I was willing to
do anything to feel well again.” Almost two years
later, Thurman says she feels “marvelous.” Barely
able to walk before the pump was implanted, she’s
now taking brisk strolls through her Columbus
neighborhood at one end of a leash, pulled along
by her new puppy. She and her fiancé are planning
a trip to Los Angeles. “Everything is just perfect.”
Not all heart failure patients qualify for the
device. Candidates must be healthy enough to
withstand surgery and capable of managing the
BEVERLY THURMAN
was “so sick, I was
willing to do anything to feel well
again.” She now
feels “marvelous.”
complex routines
of charging the
batteries and keeping the site where the wire connects through the
abdomen sterile. But for those who qualify, the
device can be life-changing. The tiny pump has
proved so effective and reliable that many older
patients who were once too sick to undergo surgery can go on to have hip replacements or other
operations that further improve their quality of life.
To implant the pump, surgeons perform open-
heart surgery. Recovery takes two weeks or more
in the hospital. The wire that protrudes from the
abdomen, connecting the pump to the controller
and power source, must be carefully cleaned daily
to prevent infection. Heart pump recipients can’t
swim and must be careful when taking a shower.
The newest battery packs provide power for up to
14 hours—a big improvement over earlier mod-
els—allowing patients far more independence. Still,
there’s the reality of having to plan ahead, to make
sure batteries are charged and a power source is
available. And for older patients especially, the
1½-pound batteries can be heavy to carry around.
Peter Jaret is is a freelance writer living in
Petaluma, Calif.
