James Clark began having difficulty completing his daily two-mile neighborhood walk. “Any type of exertion and I would get a lot of pressure and pain in my heart area,” says Clark, 82 years old. “It got to where I couldn’t walk up any type of hill and with any type of stress or pressure, I would get the pain.”
James had undergone open-heart surgery over twenty years ago, during which he had five coronary bypasses. When faced again with the need for surgery, he feared he might not survive a second time. “I thought I might have to get opened up again, and at my age, I might not make it. My valve had calcified and I had less than two years to live if I didn’t do anything.”
Fortunately, Clark had a new option: TAVR. He became the 100th TAVR patient at Parkwest. The procedure took a little more than an hour. Within three days, Clark was back home. And within a month, he was back to walking two miles a day and working on his golf game.
“I’ve got a new valve – a new aortic valve – and in 31 days I am able to go golfing and walk two miles,” said Clark. “How in the world are you going to have enough superlatives for something like that?”