Barbara Bush recovering from surgery at The Methodist Hospital

Former First Lady Barbara Bush speaks at a Houston event in 2008

Former First Lady Barbara Bush is recovering from successful heart surgery Wednesday at The Methodist Hospital in Houston. The aortic valve replacement was scheduled last week after she experienced shortness of breath and physicians detected a hardened valve in her heart. Bush is awake and alert as she recovers in the ICU, with her husband by her bedside.

“I am very impressed with and grateful to the wonderful team of doctors and nurses at The Methodist Hospital who have helped Barbara,” said former President George H. W. Bush. “We have every confidence she is in the best hands.”

Dr. Gerald Lawrie, heart surgeon at the Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center, performed the 2 ½ -hour procedure, replacing her aortic valve with a biologic valve. A hardened aortic valve needs to be replaced because, when left untreated, it can result in heart failure or sudden cardiac death.

“The surgery went extremely well and we were able to successfully replace her aortic valve,” Lawrie said. “I expect her to recover fully and soon resume her normal activities.”

The aortic valve is on the left side of the heart. It opens to allow blood to be pumped out of the heart into the body, then closes to prevent blood from flowing back into the heart.

With age, the aortic valve can harden, making it less effective. Symptoms of aortic valve disease include shortness of breath, chest pain or dizziness.

In November, Bush underwent surgery to repair a perforated ulcer. She is fully recovered from the surgery, and the two medical issues are unrelated.

We anticipate she will be discharged in 7 – 10 days.

What is the Aortic Valve?

The heart has two pumping chambers. The left side of the heart pumps blood into the body, the right side pumps blood into the lungs. The aortic valve is on the left side of the heart. It opens and allows blood to be pumped out of the heart into the body, then closes to prevent blood from flowing back into the heart.

Aortic Valve Disease

With age, the aortic valve can become calcified. Calcification, which is the most common aortic valve disease that requires surgery, hardens the valve and limits its motion, narrowing the opening through which the blood must flow out of the heart.

Symptoms of aortic valve disease include: * shortness of breath * chest pain * dizziness * fatigue.

It is important to address disease of the aortic valve, because when it becomes diseased, the heart must work much harder to pump blood into the body. If left untreated, this can result in heart failure. Unlike other heart valves, the diseased aortic valve must usually be replaced rather than repaired.

What is Aortic Valve Replacement?

In aortic valve replacement, the damaged aortic valve is replaced with either a mechanical valve or biologic valve. A biologic valve is made from natural living tissue. Natural tissue valves are less likely to cause blood clots than mechanical valves. Sometimes mechanical valves are needed with the patient’s aorta is very small. Mechanical valves provide better flow than biologic valves in very small sizes. Patients who receive mechanical valves need to take anticoagulation medication to prevent blood clots.

Dr. Gerald Lawrie, heart surgeon at the Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center in Houston, performed a 2 ½-hour procedure Wednesday on former First Lady Barbara Bush.

Dr. Gerald Lawrie Dr. Gerald Lawrie, cardiothoracic surgeon at the Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center in Houston, holds the Michael E. DeBakey Chair in Cardiac Surgery at The Methodist Hospital. He is also the medical director of the Heart Valve Institute at Methodist. Lawrie is one of the world’s most experienced surgeons treating diseased cardiac valves. A pioneer in valvular surgery, Lawrie invented a technique called the American Correction, with which he has a 100 percent success rate for repair of diseased mitral valves. In 2007, Lawrie was the first to use a surgical robot to successfully repair a mitral valve using this advanced technique.

Lawrie has also conducted research on aortic valve replacement in octogenarians. His research, presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions in November 2008, showed that patients over 80 years old had the same good outcomes as patients much younger.

Lawrie graduated from the University of Sydney Medical School. He continued his surgical education in the Teaching Hospitals of the University of N.S.W. in Sidney, then spent five months at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences of the Royal College of Surgeons in London. While Lawrie was completing his residency training in thoracic and cardiovascular surgery at Teaching Hospitals, Dr. Michael E. DeBakey was a visiting professor in Sydney. DeBakey invited Lawrie to spend a year with him in Houston.

Between 1974 and 1975, Lawrie completed a cardiovascular fellowship at The Methodist Hospital in Houston with DeBakey. After the fellowship, Lawrie was invited to join DeBakey’s personal staff as an associate surgeon. In this capacity he worked with DeBakey on a daily basis for over 20 years.

Over the course of his career, Lawrie has trained thousands of surgeons on advancements in the repair of cardiac valves and treatment of complications associated with valvular disease. He has more than 250 publications in respected medical journals.

Lawrie also has been actively involved in the development of The Methodist Hospital’s new surgical skills training facility called the Methodist Institute for Technology, Innovation and Education (MITIE™), a virtual hospital and high-tech environment that incorporates imaging, robotics and simulation to enable surgeons and their teams to master new skills. Surgeons come from across the world to watch Lawrie perform surgery with the robot in the operating room.

Media Contacts: Gale Smith Phone: 281-627-0439 Pager: 713-768-1745 gsmith@tmhs.org

Rush Limbaugh Gives Speech To CPAC VIDEO TEXT

Transcript of Rush Limbaugh's Address at CPAC. On conservative conference's final day, talk radio host delivers address.

The following is a raw transcript of Rush Limbaugh's speech on the final day of CPAC.

RUSH: Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you all very, very much. Thank you all. I can't tell you how wonderful that makes me feel. It happens everywhere I go, but it's still special here. [ Laughter ] If you all will indulge me, I learned something, I guess, it's early Friday morning that I didn't know. Friday morning is when I learned this. I learned that Fox, God love them, is televising this speech on the Fox News Channel, which means, ladies and gentleman, this is my first ever address to the nation. [Applause] Now, I have someone in back taking phone numbers. In fact, I would like to introduce to you my security chief, a man who runs all of my security. His name is Joseph Stalin. Joseph, would you please --

[Laughter ] I am safe from any liberal attack, in public, because they would be afraid of offending Stalin.

[Laughter] Now the opportunity here to address the nation, a serious one, it really is. And I want to take it seriously. I want to address something. I know that people are probably watching this who never have listened to my program and may not even really know what conservatism is. They think they do based on how they've been told -- the way we've been impugned and maligned and so forth. One of the things that is totally erroneous about me -- and I just want to get this up front -- is that I'm pompous. [Laughter] And that I am arrogant. Neither of these things are remotely true. I can tell you a joke to illustrate this. Larry King passed away, goes to heaven. He's greeted by Saint Peter at the gates. Saint Peter says, "Welcome, Mr. King, it's great to have you here. I want to show you around, give you an idea of what's here, maybe you can pick a place that you'd like to reside." King says, "I just have one question: Is Rush Limbaugh here?" "No, he's got a lot of time yet, Mr. King." So Saint Peter begins the tour. Larry King sees the various places and it's beyond anything we can imagine in terms of beauty. Finally, he gets to the biggest room of all, with this giant throne. And over the throne is a flashing beautiful angelic neon sign that says "Rush Limbaugh."

[Laughter] And Larry King looks at Saint Peter and says: "I thought you said he wasn't here." "He said, he's not, he's not. This is God's room. He just thinks he's Rush Limbaugh."

[Laughter] [Applause] So you see I'm not pompous.

[Laughter] Now, seriously, for those of you watching on C-SPAN as well, and on Fox, I want to tell you who we all are in this room. I want to tell you who conservatives are. We conservatives have not done a good enough job of just laying out basically who we are because we make the mistake of assuming people know. What they know is largely incorrect based on the way we are portrayed in pop culture, in the Drive-By Media, by the Democrat Party. Let me tell you who we conservatives are: We love people. [Applause]

When we look out over the United States of America, when we are anywhere, when we see a group of people, such as this or anywhere, we see Americans. We see human beings. We don't see groups. We don't see victims. We don't see people we want to exploit. What we see -- what we see is potential. We do not look out across the country and see the average American, the person that makes this country work. We do not see that person with contempt. We don't think that person doesn't have what it takes. We believe that person can be the best he or she wants to be if certain things are just removed from their path like onerous taxes, regulations and too much government. [Applause]

We want every American to be the best he or she chooses to be. We recognize that we are all individuals. We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. [Applause] We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life. [Applause] Liberty, Freedom. [Applause] And the pursuit of happiness. [Applause] Those of you watching at home may wonder why this is being applauded. We conservatives think all three are under assault. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you.

We don't want to tell anybody how to live. That's up to you. If you want to make the best of yourself, feel free. If you want to ruin your life, we'll try to stop it, but it's a waste. We look over the country as it is today, we see so much waste, human potential that's been destroyed by 50 years of a welfare state. By a failed war on poverty. [Applause] We love the people of this country. And we want this to be the greatest country it can be, but we do understand, as people created and endowed by our creator, we're all individuals. We resist the effort to group us. We resist the effort to make us feel that we're all the same, that we're no different than anybody else. We're all different. There are no two things or people in this world who are created in a way that they end up with equal outcomes. That's up to them. They are created equal, given the chance - -[Applause] We don't hate anybody. We don't -- I mean, the racism in this country, if you ask me, I know many people in this audience -- let me deal with this head on. You know what the cliche is, a conservative: racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen of America, if you were paying attention, I know you were, the racism in our culture was exclusively and fully on display in the Democrat primary last year. [Applause] PRINT FRIENDLY FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT