We had initially discussed it and went into surgery with that planned. However, the morning of, due to the extensive surgery planned, it was thought to be too much by other consulting surgeons. He decided he would repair the aorta that day only if he had to open the aorta to ligate the fistula. We did discuss various scenarios of what and when to do something depending on circumstances. The root made the decision for the surgeon and we had a plan in place. In reality, that was a fortunate break for me because it could have ruptured anytime in the near future. It turns out the tissue was fragile which doesn't show up on scans or catheter angiograms. I am meeting later this month with the genetics clinic at Mayo to try and figure out what the origins of these things are i.e. the complex fistula, aorta etc.