Word: patiently
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Thomas Starzl, a noted transplant surgeon at the University Health Center in Pittsburgh, argues that "the cost of transplants is no higher than the cost of dying from severe diseases of vital organs." A patient can run up expenses of $250,000 before getting a liver transplant, Starzl points out. Nevertheless, the prices of organ transplants remain staggering: heart transplants cost somewhere between $100,000 and $200,000 (Clark's hospital bill was $200,000, not counting $9,000 for the artificial heart, $7,400 for its pump, and the $3,000 or so per year that it would have...
...metal-and-plastic heart whirred and clicked in an eerie, mechanical rhythm as Dr. William DeVries, 40, removed the tracheal tube from his patient's throat. For the first time since his artificial heart had been implanted about 36 hours earlier, William Schroeder, 52, could breathe on his own and speak. "Can I get you something to drink?" the doctor asked. Replied Schroeder: "I'd like a beer." It was, DeVries admitted afterward, one of the high points of the tension-filled hours following his second successful attempt to implant an artificial heart...
...room to find that he was hemorrhaging along the row of stitches connecting the artificial heart to his aorta. Doctors stanched the flow by applying pressure and clotting agents, but not before Schroeder had lost a massive amount of blood. By the next day, however, Lansing reported that the patient was back on track: his blood pressure was normal, his heartbeat steady and, he added, "where his skin was cold and gray and clammy then, it is now warm and pink...
...Schroeder's doctors there is much stress ahead as they worry about their patient's survival. DeVries told reporters last week that he will worry for as long as Schroeder lives about the risk of infection, which is a greater problem for diabetics, or about a breakdown in the equipment. "We live on the edge of possible disaster at any time," he said. By applying the lessons learned from Barney Clark, DeVries hopes that certain earlier calamities can be avoided. For example, because Clark's brain seizures were attributed to the sudden increase in blood circulation following...
DeVries wistfully expressed the hope last week that his patient would be home for Christmas, although he quickly acknowledged that it was "very, very unrealistic." For the Schroeders, every extra heartbeat was gift enough. "It's different, but at least it's beating, and I can feel it," said his wife Margaret. Added their son Melvin: "He's just the old Dad again...