He was admitted to the hospital and classified as a 1A on the transplant list. That gives you priority over all the Bs,  Book said. The 1Bs are at home. Book was surgically hooked up to a left ventricular assist device, which is designed to assist patients whose hearts are unable to provide adequate circulation to the body. According to information in the Seton Heartbeat newsletter on the device, a computerized console operates one or two disposable, external blood pumps, which are connected to the patient s heart.
Blood flows through specially designed tubing, away from the patient s heart and into the pumps.
The pumps return blood to the patient s circulatory system, bypassing the heart. This was used on Fred because he had a failing heart and was not a candidate for another bypass operation, said Dr. Mark Felger, a Seton cardiothoracic surgeon who performed the transplant operation. We have a waiting list of four to six months and he was in trouble. He needed to have something to support his heart while he waited for a transplant. There are larger assist devices that will pump for both sides of the heart, but Book only needed it for the left side, which pumps blood to the rest of the body, Felger explained.