Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement.
What brought us to this point in time: Mom had a diseased aortic valve. She was scheduled for a valve replacement Wed Dec 21st at HUP. Surgery was to be ~3-4 hours. Upon opening, they found she had an unusually small aortic valve (17mm). They essentially performed 2 valve replacement surgeries that day (the first being a bit small and needing to remove root and graft tissue to enlarge the root for a larger valve) taking 10 hours. Due to edema, she remained open. Friday she was brought in to OR for a lavage (cleansing of the area). They found she had a heart attack Thursday and needed to perform a catheterization where they found an increased blockage of an aortic artery. They then performed a single bypass. She remained open due to increased edema. The following Friday they brought her back into the OR for lavage and a flap closure. That is using pectoral muscle to cover the heart and surrounding area. Her sternum will remain cracked and separated forever and therefore will be more fragile in the chest area. She has much healing to do and this will take a very long time and a lot of patience, prayers, good thoughts and love.
CaringBridge is a nonprofit social network dedicated to helping family and friends communicate with and support loved ones during a health journey. Learn more about CaringBridge.
