Meeting with the Surgeon

Posted Oct 17, 2008 1:06pm

We met with the Surgeon, and some of his staff, for the first time this morning. He reviewed the whole procedure on how they expected to repair the artery this morning. “Simply stated”, they plan to make a larger hole where the artery comes out and then open the artery length-wise to make it larger and then attach the elongated opening onto the aorta. This will make the artery itself larger therefore allowing the blood to flow freely (even when being compressed), the larger/angled opening will also negate the existing kink so as to not limit blood supply there also. There is a chance however that once they get in there, they may need to do additional procedures – possibly additional openings - but this once again will depend upon exactly where they determine the artery is coming out and whether it is actually running thorough the wall of the aorta, which was identified as a possibility per their image reviews.

Though heart surgery is somewhat a routine event these days, her particular surgery is not. My understanding is they only do about 1 or 2 of these a year. Fortunately her surgeon is experienced on this defect and also lectures on it. So we are probably in one of the better places to have this performed. As with all heart surgeries, there is still risk – so this is not something we are taking light-heartedly (no pun intended :)

Marki is taking it all in and is doing well. She said she is not scared - I attribute this to your prayers for her to have peace. As I mentioned previously, she has a good friend who went through heart surgery a year ago where they implanted a defribulator in her chest which is hardwired to the heart. So she has been a good source for Marki to draw on as she goes through this event. Marki is however is counting the days until EVERYONE can wait on her hand and foot. She was informed that for the first six weeks, she can do nothing with her arms except basically brush\wash her hair, brush her teeth, eat, and use very restrained movement. She cannot pick up anything greater than 5 pounds…oh but she can do school work :(. Once she is able to return to school, she will have to have someone carry her books, etc until the 6 weeks is up. They want NO movement until they confirm the sternum is cleanly healed (if not, it would required them to go back in and do surgery on the sternum itself). However, after 6 weeks, she will be free to do pretty much anything that she feels up to. – Until then… it will be anybody’s guess. He expects a fast recovery, with the only limiting factor really being her feeling drained until her blood supply\iron is replenished fully. So he believes that is the only thing that will limit her to get back into her current shape.

I expect that I really will not have any further updates until we go into pre-op on Nov 10th. However she is still periodically still getting chest pains, so if anything changes between now and then, I will let you know. However, please feel free to give us or Marki a call, come by, etc. We are always up for an adventure. Marki is still going to the Fletcher soccer practices (though she cannot train) and we will be attending all the games except during the time of surgery and until she feels up to going again. So we expect that we will see many of you at the games. Until then…

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers!

BTW, I added a new pic of her and her Surgeon, staff.

Love, Mary …Mark, Marki, and Maranda