Word: haydon
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LAST WEEK'S SURGERY ON MURRAY HAYDON, 58, THE THIRD MAN IN HISTORY to receive a permanent artificial heart, could not have gone more smoothly. DeVries finished the job in 3 1/2 hours, about half the time it took to implant the device in William Schroeder last November, and four hours faster than the first implant surgery conducted more than two years ago on Seattle Dentist Barney Clark. This time there were no problems with bleeding (as there had been with Schroeder), and no breathless moments when the device failed to work (as in Clark's case). Said a nurse...
...week's end Haydon was breathing on his own, slurping Popsicles and doing passive exercises. He also stood briefly by his bed, and was scheduled to sit in a chair. The quiet-mannered former Ford assembly-line worker from the Louisville suburb of St. Matthews also displayed a wry sense of humor. "Would you please turn on the television?" he asked two days after surgery. "I would like to see if I'm alive and how I'm doing...
Like his two predecessors, Haydon became a candidate for heart replacement because of terminal cardiomyopathy, a progressive weakening of the heart muscle. But his chances seemed better than those of either Clark or Schroeder. Clark, who was all but dead at the time of his implant surgery, not only had heart disease but was suffering from emphysema; Schroeder had diabetes and advanced atherosclerosis...
...Still, Haydon was deathly ill. In the month preceding his operation, his weight had fallen from 175 lbs. to 150 lbs. His breathing was labored, and he felt so weak that just brushing his teeth was exhausting. "I'm tired of being tired," he told DeVries. Doctors estimated he had only two to three weeks left to live. His family urged him to try the artificial heart. "We % wanted it desperately," said Diana Welsh, 30, the oldest of his three children, "but it had to be his decision...
...Haydon was aware of the considerable risks involved. Though Barney Clark had survived 112 days with the device, he had suffered unexplained brain seizures that left him depressed and disabled. Schroeder, too, was struggling with serious neurological problems, caused primarily by a stroke that occurred 18 days after his implant surgery, leaving him with impaired speech, loss of short-term memory and weakness on his right side. Schroeder's recovery was further hampered in January by seizures (a common complication of strokes) and, in recent weeks, by fever that ranged as high as 105 degrees...