WE GOT THE SCOOP

3/13/09 - 2:30pm



I slept lightly for about 5 hours in Kristi's old room in her Dad's house. Woke up this morning at 6, took a quick shower and headed to the Hospital. By the time I got there Kristi had just woken up. Her nurse was in there taking her vital signs and asking her questions. She asked her if she was ready for her bypass surgery. Kristi said, "No, I am having an Aortic Valve Replacement." The nurse said "Oh...Heart Transplant?" Kristi said "Noooo....wrong patient." And then the nurse started to prepare some injections for her. We were sure to check and make sure that those meds were for HER and not for the guy getting the heart transplant or bypass operation.



After that fiasco, Dr. Razook came in to talk with her and he brought her old friend Dr. Bailey to talk to her as well. She "I spied" him while he was talking outside her room. They had had a meeting earlier that morning and decided on what kind of Aortic Valve Replacement they wanted to do. They decided on Bentall Procedure. It is a replacement of the aortic root, aortic valve and ascending aorta. I will expain... On the top of your heart you have an arch. That entire thing is called the aorta. Attached to that are the coronary arteries. She will have the lower section of that arch replaced with a one piece prosthetic composed of plastic, metal and cloth. When they cut the damaged section out, they will snip off the coronary arteries that connect to the Aorta and cut out the lower section of the Aorta including the valve. That entire section will be replaced with this device. The coronary arteries will be attached to that cloth part. They said that back when this procedure was invented the doctor that invented it sewed the cloth section on his mothers sewing machine. Crazy, right? They said that the chance of her having a stroke during the procedure is minimal due to her age and the chance of her having a heart attack due to the Arteries pinching are also small. There biggest concerns they have are infection and bleeding. They say that attaching tissue to cloth instead of tissue to tissue, there is more likely to be bleeding. That is why they want to take their time with the surgery to make sure it is nice and tight. There is scar tissue to deal with as well because they have cut into her Aorta 3 times already. When you do surgeries like this over and over and over again the tissues in that area tend to get really tight. They may have to extend the coronary arteries to reach and if that is the case they will have use another type of cloth device to get them to attach. The other problem is that as you do these open heart operations the heart, when it heals, get closer and closer to the breast bone. If it is too close, they will need to insert a piece of fabric between her heart and her breastbone so it does not touch. They took 2 X-Rays this afternoon to check to see what the distance is between the two.



So that is the long and short of it. They decided to do the Surgery on Tuesday at 7:30 in the morning. They want to make sure that all 4 of the Doctors, and most importantly Dr. Razook and Dr. Bailey will be fresh, well rested and have a fresh team of nurses to work with them. They said that the operation will take 6 to 8 hours...which will be excruciating for all of us in the waiting room. Before he left he wanted us all to say a prayer with him. He prayed that god watch over her, watch over her babies, me and all that are supporting her. He asked that he join him on Tuesday and give him guidance when he is operating. Let's hope that happens...we need all the help we can get. She is a fighter, she has a great attitude towards the surgery, she loves and respects her doctors and is confident she will make it through.



Here is a link to Wikipedia on the procedure: Wiki



Here is a link to a picture of the heart so you can see what I am talking about when I mention the aorta parts: Heart