Lucky to Avoid Surgery

Shop deals on ebay
Advertise with us
shop deals on amazon
Valve Replacement Forums

Help Support Valve Replacement Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
B

Bill Hall

I had a successful procedure on Tuesday to correct the aneurysm on the suture line of my aortic valve replacement. I would like to go through my story of good luck and good people. First, I discovered I had an aneurysm in Feb and they wanted me to see a surgeon immediately and have it corrected. Of course, I was willing to go ahead, but I also knew I would have to have the the homograft aortic valve replaced someday and that would mean three surgeries, my first in 2001 at Cleveland, a second for the aneurysm and a third one for the homograft repkacement. So, my main question to the doctors was if I should replace the homograft now and avoid the third surgery or if I should have three surgeries and what about that third surgery. I also posted on VR.com (here)and got some great help with questions to ask and perspectives. Since Rachel Howell had gone through the same aneurysm problem, she helped me in more detail throughout. One of her big points was that this was complex and that I needed a good surgeon with lots of experience in this particular area. I decided to do my best to follow her advice. So, I asked a friend of mine from Colorado to ask Dr. Miller of Stanford (Dr. Miller did his valve surgery in March of this year) to suggest good surgeons who would be local to me in Virginia. Two surgeons were suggested, both at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. I selected Dr. David Yuh. I met with Dr. Yuh and we did an angiogram in May. At that time, he suggested that we might be able to solve the problem in a non-invasive manner. I jumped at this idea, since I was having a difficult time deciding whether the third surgery was a big deal. Anyway, I thought we were going to do an embolization, but they decided to use a plug. The plug is the kind they use on baby's hearts that have holes. It is not used in the high velocity blood near my aortic root. So, this was the first time it was ever used this way. Dr. Resar was planning to write a technical paper and present at some doctor's forum. Anyway, thank you all for the support, especially Rachel. I am very lucky to have you all and I really got lucky with my outcome.
Bill
 
Excellent, Bill, and what a relief to read; I've been wondering how you were doing.
 
Bill,

I already had been wondering how you were doing and was thinking about writing you a PM. I was real happy to learn that they were able to do a fix and that you don't have to go through another surgery. What a blessing. Hope the fix will last the rest of your life.

Hugs,
 
Bill,

Glad to hear that everything turned out well and that you were able to finds an excellent surgeon who was willing to be think outside the box and perform this procedure. Good luck to you and your repair.

Brad
 
Thanks for all the kind words. Doctor Resar promised to send me the article when written. I will post it when he sends it to me.
Bill
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top