Very interesting. I've never heard of this. I had my ascending aorta replaced with a dacron graft tube (in Raleigh) '08. How are you doing now? Did you have any aortic valve work done?
Hi there,
I suspect that you had "Bicuspid aortic valve disease" and another type of aortic defect. Normally the Surgeons would replace the Aortic valve during the 1st Surgery, but I am sure they had good reason to do the Surgery/replacement in two parts.
The normal Valve-replacement surgery (open heart - full sternotomy and on cardio-pulmonary bypass) would leave the Surgeon with a heart that is not pumping and should take from 3-6 hours to complete. Your surgery was done over 12 hours! thus it must have been a very complicated case and very rear.
I am very glad to hear that you have survived all of this and life after a new valve/repaired heart sure is much better!
I had my mitral valve surgery, 4 years ago and doing great :)