DeVonne Quamme DeVonne Quamme

Welcome to DeVonne's Caring Bridge website.  This is the story of our Mom, Grandma, Sister, Auntie, Cousin & Friend. 
Our moms story started when she was very young. She contracted strep throat. That's it! Well what most of us don't know is when strep isn't taken care of properly, it can turn into Rheumatic Fever. In her case it did. Rheumatic Fever is known to attack the valves in your heart. Our mom is on her journey to have her 3rd open heart surgery this week. 
She has already had her aortic and mitro valves replaced. She's also had a pacemaker placed in. This is why we are back in this position again. 
16 years ago, they placed the leads to her pacemaker over her tricuspid valve.  After 16 years, you can only imagine how imbedded these are now. 
We have gone to many different Dr's and surgeons and they all said no, its way to risky of a procedure and she is looking at about 6 months time left. 
Now... if you know anything about DeVonne, she didn't take no for an answer. We ended up down at the Mayo Hospital in Rochester to get another opinion. After weeks of tests and a few "no's" we found a world known Cardiologist that is going to take on this surgery for her. 
What's happening is EVERY time her heart pumps, it is pumping 2 full CC cups of blood back into her body (regurgitating) so it is not producing oxygen like normal.
She needs yet another new valve due to the damage the pacemaker leads did to it. 
Her surgeon has decided to take out her pacemaker (which is what every other dr and surgen wont touch) and replace the valve and put her new wireless pacemaker. 
We as a family know that this is a pretty routine surgery... for the normal person. See... this isn't a "normal situation". We had to make the difficult decision to do this as she is so weak and frail knowing this is a very high risk surgery. There are so many risks but that is not what we want to focus on at this time.
She has been scheduled a few times already but because of COVID , her surgery has been put off, then she came down with severe diverticulitis (not even going there right now) that landed her in the hospital for 8 days. So again... her surgery was cancelled.
Well... the Mayo called and said she needs this surgery right now so here we are....
Due to COVID, she can only have 1 person with her at the Mayo. Nope..not 1 person at a time...just 1 person period. So her person through this is her daughter Tracie. Not including all the people that are there for Tracie and everyone  there for DeVonne through video chats, prayer and spirit. 
DeVonne's family will try to keep everyone updated through this site. It is just too much to have to contact everyone  
Tracie will be staying at a hotel in Rochester while DeVonne is going through this. We were told she will be there for a few weeks and in the ICU for a week or more. 
Please keep us all in your thoughts and Prayers and help us get through this 1 day at a time.


As far as we know, Tracie will be bringing  her to the Mayo on Sunday, May 24th. DeVonne will be going through lots of tests and taken off of all her heart meds and her surgery is scheduled for Wednesday, May 27th.
We look forward to bringing you very good news in the days / weeks ahead.