vhmoriarty's surgery

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Glad she is doing well. Good news. I was wondering how they missed a 5 aneurysm too. Glad it is out! Hope the recovery is "bump free".

I hope others are taking note! Many times over the years, once someone is opened up, they find something that they didn't see before or in the case of some aneurysms, they end up being much larger then they measured previously and on the verge of dissection.
 
Thank-you for the updates and prayers continue for a well continued recovery
 
What excellent news!! I am glad she got the Ross procedure as she wanted - or least what she settled on. Here's wishing her continued success in her recovery. I can't imagine how relieved you all are. Many prayers are coming your way. Bill get some rest - as much as you can - as you will be no good to her if you are all worn out when she gets home.

Best wishes & Godspeed!

Rhena
 
Glad to here everything went well. Valerie is still in my prayers for a bump free recovery.
Thanks for the update. Look forward to more news later. Make sure you get your rest to ICU takes real good care of their patients. :)
 
Glad to hear you came through ok valerie. Prayers still coming your way for a smooth recovery. Good luck!
 
This was posted to her Facebook:

"Bad news good news.

Bad news: There was a problem. They had to go back and restitch a valve. Her blood pressure dropped, and she stopped breathing. They had to do a heart cath, and she is back on the ventilator.

Good news: When they restitched the valve, she immediately started showing signs of improvement. She was still not awake when I left tonight, but they actually had to give her something to help her sleep. The anesthesia is starting to wear off (due to the fixed valve), and she is communicating. Her color had returned to her face and body, but there is still a lot of swelling in her legs and hands. This sets us back at square 1 (where we should have been right after the surgery), but we are very optimistic.

Please keep her in your thoughts."


I can explain a little better here:

They stopped her heart, and it "shrunk" due to no bloodflow. After the aneurysm, they started the Ross Procedure on her, and, when stitching in the new Pul. valve, they thought they had done an adequate job. When they started her heart again, there was a small fold, like when you try to stitch a patch on jeans how a little piece may just fold up a little. They did not see this as her heart was just starting to re-enlarge with the bloodflow. This is what has caused the delay in coming off of anesthesia, her lethargy, etc.

Her blood pressure bottomed out, and she stopped breathing... they essentially lost her for a moment. They put her back on the ventilator, but her O2 was still at 80%, even with the ventilator. They did a heart cath to find the problem, and found and fixed it.

Because of this, though, she has been setback to Day 1, like she is just coming into the recovery room. She is very sick, and they are 1:1ing her in the ICU. She is coming around, communicating as best as she can, and staying awake more, but it is still touch and go.

Now her blood pressure is still a little low, even for her... 80s/50s and sometimes 70s/40s. Her O2 stats have come back up to 100, but she is having a hard time coughing up the fluid in her lungs. Heart rate is in the low 100s, but her blood volume (from the SWANN reading) is staying at 1.6 to 1.8 with occasional spikes to 2.0 or 2.2. They want her to be at 2.0 or more for a continued amount of time before they take the SWANN out. It, too, has stayed low due to the stitching.

I will update more as it comes.
 
So sorry to hear of her problems. It sounds like they caught it in time though and hopefully, all will be well now. I know this is very hard on all of you. Hang in there, things will get better. And tell her to cut it out, we've had enough problems with this last batch of surgeries, no more allowed!

We will be thinking of you all.

Kim
 
Wow....Poor thing! Maybe things are stiched up good and tight now and she can start to improve!!

Give her our love, and we are all praying for her!

Mileena
 
Glad to hear they found the problem and were able to fix it. I'm sure this setback was very frightening and frustrating but hopefully she's really on the road to recovery now. I'm keeping Valerie in my prayers.
 
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