Sunday, February 6, 2011

Your Heart!


To understand CCTGA, it helps to firstunderstand how a normal heart works. Here is your assignment forthe day. Get to know your heart and understand it. There *may* be a quiz!!!!

I'll be back later tonight with a description of Nate's heart.

A normal heart is
divided into two sides. The right side
pumps blood from the body into the lungs. The left side
pumps the blood from the lungs out to the body. Each
side has an atrium and a ventricle. The atrium acts like a
“waiting room” for the blood. The ventricle does the hard
work of pushing the blood out to the lungs or body. At
the entrance and exit from each ventricle is a valve, which
acts like a door. These valves allow the ventricle to fill
with blood from one side, and then push it out the other.

Each ventricle and valve is designed to do its specific job.
The right ventricle is designed to give the blood a gentle
push to send it to the lungs. It is bigger than the left ventricle
and does not have as much muscle. The left ventricle
is designed to give the blood a strong push out to the
body. It has less space inside because its thick walls take
up more space. The valve between the left atrium and
ventricle, the mitral valve, is the body’s strongest valve.
It is designed to stay shut against the strong push of the
blood out to the body.


1 comment:

Brenna said...

Hi Carole, my friend! What a fun idea...a great way to understand "normal hearts" and our boys' "complicated hearts"! I was at a meeting last night for CHD families and I met a lady with a d-tga son...and she had never heard of cc-tga...and it is even really complicated explaining it to other heart parents! I hope all is well.
Brenna