You Can Have My Heart - a photo on Flickriver

My Visit To My Cardiologist

He decided to replace my entire heart with this artificial version that he just happens to have available. Can't beat that for good luck!! --- Not really... I am just kidding. This is just a model to show to patients like me. I think it comes apart.

Fortunately I need only one heart valve repaired. it's just the Mitral valve that doesn't close properly. I don't even need a valve replacement. It must be hard to get in there with pliers and pipe valve wrenches. I've done lots of that work while renovating old buildings...;))

I can barely remember what life was like when I could be very active and was filled with energy.
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A comment by Melissa "The Gifted photographer" has reminded me of something from my past. Years ago, I worked for a company that developed heart assist machines, the first intra-aortic balloon pump, that was needed to keep people alive until heart replacements were available or even possible.

The founder and Director of The Avco Everett Research Laboratory in Everett, Massachusetts was Prof. Arthur Kantrowitz, formerly of Cornell University. Fluid dynamics was the lab's specialty, especially at high temperatures, like the Space Shuttle faces upon reentry. His brother, Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz was a surgeon at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY. It was an interesting combination that led to an excellent project.

In the 1960s and 1970s, when I worked there, Professor Arthur R. Kantrowitz led the design and development at AERL of the first intra-aortic balloon pump. The balloon pump is a temporary cardiac assist device which has been used worldwide on three million people. The device was used on his own failing heart.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Kantrowitz

Here is a photo of Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz, right, in 1967 with two other surgical pioneers, Dr. Christiaan Barnard, left, and Dr. Michael E. DeBakey from Texas.

Taken from www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/us/19kantrowiztz.html

AERL's Founder and Director was Adrian's brother, Arthur, who was very brilliant and completely charismatic. I enjoyed working there, and it's successor in Textron Systems in Wilmington, Massachusetts, more than anywhere else, ever.

Here is Arthur's, nickname Arkey, obituary in the NY Times, It is very nostalgic for me.
www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/science/09kantrowitz.html

Chic

Addendum:
I am adding these paragraphs to point out that I did not work on the balloon pump project. My Ph.D. from M.I.T., the year I was hired at AERL, was in Nuclear Physics (an entirely different story). However, I had spent a few years working in "Reentry Physics" at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory. Approximately a year and a half of that had been at the US' intercontinental ballistic missile range in the Pacific Ocean. Lincoln's radar and optical station were located in Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Our work was reviewed, on site, by a team of Nobel Prize winning physicists who made up ARPA's Jason Committee. (Remember in Greek legends, Jason pursued the golden fleece.)

As a result, I was hired at AERL to work on the project for which the lab had been founded: the safe reentry of ballistic missiles.

AERL operated like a university college of science. There were regular colloquia in all subjects of interest to the Lab. Everyone could attend any meeting. It was a great way to keep track of progress or difficulties in fields of active interest. I should mention, that Professor Hans Bethe from Cornell University, the former head of the Theoretical Division of The Manhattan Project visited monthly to review and comment on progress and problems.

I'll never forget giving my pre-hiring presentation to the whole re-enry committee as part of the acceptance process. I was grilled and fried by the committee members. It was a test of courage and poise as well as knowledge..;)) I was sure that I would not be offered a position! I always felt, after that initial hazing,,;)) and subsequent presentations to AERL committees, I could present to any group in the world with complete confidence.

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Taken on: April 7, 2011

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Sets appears in: • Medical • A Matter of Life and Death

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