Jim Harris

Last June I went to doctor because I thought I was having a heart attack. They checked me out and sent me directly to a Cardiologist. After running the tread mill, getting a EKG and an Echo Cladogram as well as a number of blood tests, he sent me to the hospital to do an Angiogram to see if I had any blockage. I had the Angiogram the next day and they said that they could drive a Mac Truck through my veins, however; they found that my Aorta was 5.0cm. A normal Aorta is 3.7cm and they said the portion coming directly out of the heart showed an Aneurism. They checked it again in December 2015 and it hadn’t grown so I was sent home. Two weeks ago at my one year follow up my Cardiologist did another Echo Cardiogram and found that my Aorta grew by .4cm so he scheduled me for CT Scan to get a 3D image of what was going on. I had my CT Scan last week and they scheduled me an appointment with a Thoracic Surgeon this past Thursday. It turns out that my Aorta is actually at 5.6cm and at the point where they need to do surgery. The Aneurism is in the Aorta right where it comes out of the heart so they need to do Open Heart Surgery to replace the Aorta Valve in my heart as well as cut out the portion of the Aorta that has the Aneurism and replace it with a DacronTube that is sewn directly onto the Aorta. The entire surgery is 5 to 6 hours without any complications and I will be in ICU for three days after the surgery so they can monitor me for internal bleeding etc. I will then spend another six days’ in the hospital for recovery and then six to eight weeks’ recovery at home. I go into the hospital on Thursday, July 28th to get ready, and the surgery is scheduled for Friday morning,