Human taxonomy is amazing. Some people know I'm undergoing an Aortic valve replacement soon. Recently they added the pulmonary valve as a possible replacement and my Mitral valve on 'watch'. Several people don't know the functions of their most important organ. Here's a crash course. :]. This is what my cardiologist told me as a kid, I added links to wikipedia articles. I am not sure how exactly accurate it is but at the time was the best way I can understand it...at the age of eight.

Aortic Valve The aortic valve pumps blood out of the heart. This is one of the main valves of the heart.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aortic_valve
At this time I have: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aortic_stenosis

Aorta The aorta is the largest artery in the human body. The aortic valve pumps blood through the aorta to all parts of the body.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aorta

Pulmonary Valve The pulmonary valve pushes blood to pulmonary arteries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulmonary_valve

Pulmonary Arteries The pulmonary arteries pushes blood through the lungs to get 'oxygenated'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulmonary_arteries

Mitral Valve Blood flows through the mitral valve to get 'recycled' in the heart process. The mitral valve is also the one you want to try to avoid surgery on. Blood is put in the mitral valve by pulmonary veins.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitral_valve

Tricuspid Valve Same as the mitral valve but blood is recieved via the Vena Casas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricuspid_valve

Inferior Vena Casa and Superior Vena Cava The Vena Cava Veins (two different ones inferior and superior) returns the blood from the heart to the valve.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vena_casa

Personally I think I'm one step worse than those who don't know much about the heart, seeing as I have a heart problem and don't know much about my heart.

I can't remember the exact term as I haven't had a doctor's visit in about two years, nor can I remember exactly what the problem is with. The only thing that I can remember about it is that something that separates dirty blood from clean blood leaks, and for the moment the clean blood is just getting in with the dirty blood, causing it to be cleaned twice which is no problem.

However, I'm supposed to refrain from extremely physical situations or from too much stress as it heightens the risk for the dirty blood to get in with the clean blood, which could possibly have serious consequences.

I suppose it's not too smart then that I enjoy a game of Rugby or British Bulldog with my friends every once and a while. I'm sure the stress I've had lately isn't doing me too good either.

lol... dirty blood.

No such thing, I actual refute that you say the hearth is the most important organ of the human body.

Sure, it may keep us alive, but does not most other organs do to? What about the Liver? or the pancreas, or the brain?

What the heart does can be done by either means, what about insects? They don't have hearts yet they have blood

Posted By Sven on 26th Jul 08 at 7:10am

 

lol... dirty blood.

No such thing, I actual refute that you say the hearth is the most important organ of the human body.

Sure, it may keep us alive, but does not most other organs do to? What about the Liver? or the pancreas, or the brain?

What the heart does can be done by either means, what about insects? They don't have hearts yet they have blood

If there's no such thing as dirty blood then your liver would not exist.

There is 'dirty' blood, but it's not literally dirty lol.

Posted By Sven on 27th Jul 08 at 1:31am

 

There is 'dirty' blood, but it's not literally dirty lol.

The term dirty blood was used by my cardiologist to describe deoxygenated blood.

Everyone has deoxygenated blood... It occurs after our muscles have used the oxygen in it for cellular respiration, which human beings require to survive It's how our muscles move - why you breathe faster after running... You've been burning oxygen.

Posted By Sven on 27th Jul 08 at 12:43pm

 

Everyone has deoxygenated blood... It occurs after our muscles have used the oxygen in it for cellular respiration, which human beings require to survive It's how our muscles move - why you breathe faster after running... You've been burning oxygen.

Yup. Though, over half of the major heart problems I see now the heart associations have no research on them, looking them up on the internet it's non-existent.

But it is getting pretty amazing how far technology is getting. I wonder what are the complicated surgeries now o_O.

There's still some pretty major ones.. I mean, getting a bi-pass isn't anything to take lightly still.

Not many major surgical discoveries have been found recently, while there have been some - it looks pretty dead and more focused on things like vaccines and cure for cancer.