I was an emergency case. Thought I was having heart attack. Went to the hospital at 1am - busted aortic valve, busted aortic root, ascending type-A and descending type-B dissections (my whole aorta was/is still dissected), and a 55mm aneurysm. I had no idea what was going on - and this ignorance saved me. They never told me how bad it was, or whether I would survive etc. They asked me to choose what type of valve and that was it. No other questions and so no panic.