A new heart valve, a new chapter: How one 94-year-old got her breath back

When Joan Duff tells you she’s doing “pretty darn good,” you can tell she means it.

At 94, Joan recently became the first person in the Twin Cities to receive a new kind of heart valve — a tiny device called Evoque that was designed to fix a leaky valve on the right side of the heart.

“I can do a lot more now,” she said. “I don’t get down between doing things. I still get tired, but I’m doing much better than before.”