Gene McSweeney

“I decided beforehand that I wanted a bioprosthesis,” said 57-year-old Gene McSweeney about his valve replacement. "I didn’t want to be on warfarin. I fish and I cut myself a lot – I didn’t want to deal with that.”

		Gene was born with a bicuspid aortic valve, and had lived with a heart murmur all his life. “I had yearly echocardiograms… I was told I might need surgery one day.” But after this retired safety and health professional went into an almost fatal episode of a-fib for the second time in December 2005, he knew it was time to do something. “The scary thing was the premature ventricular contractions; my heart would go into oddball rhythms. It felt like bangs in your chest, it was disturbing,” Gene said. The valve had calcified over the years, and surgeon Dr. Ralph DeLatorre decided to use the Carpentier-Edwards PERIMOUNT heart valve to replace Gene’s damaged valve.
“I found out after that I had a fifty-fifty chance of being dead within the next year,” Gene said. In February 2006, Gene underwent surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston. “It helped right away,” Gene said of his recovery. “The PVCs stopped and two days after surgery I was up and walking in the hospital. I was in the gym two weeks later lifting weights (but don’t tell my doctors that.)” Only five months later, Gene was able to return to his passion. “I’m back to distance running, up to an hour and 20 minutes.” The Edwards’ heart valve has helped Gene live the active lifestyle he loves so much. “I feel terrific,” Gene replied. “I feel better than I have in the last 15 years.”