Recent information reveals the true extent of my emergency

On August 12, 2024, I met with the chair of cardiothoracic surgery with a list of things that needed surgery, 4 to be exact. He said he would like to do surgery in 10 days but due to the complexity he wanted to schedule it for Sep 10th. While I was debating it, he said we could postpone it if I wanted. I asked him if it be like January or Feb 2025? He said no, it would be October and that I wouldn't need surgery in January. I didn't ask him to elaborate on that and we scheduled it for Sep 10th and it turns out I wouldn't be here otherwise. Surgery lasted 14 hours.

Hi there - hugs to you.
That is quite some surgery. Would you like to share what those 4 things were?
Are you all good now and on the mend? I know it's going to take some time 🙂

Sep 10
1. Resection aneurysm on right coronary artery
2. Ligate complex coronary fistula from right coronary artery to pulmonary artery and from mid-Lad to pulmonary artery along with a nest of collaterals associated with it.
3. Triple bypass on LAD
4. After about 7+ hours, they took me restarted my heart and took me off the heart lung machine. However, Aortic root ruptured and ascending aorta split resulting in a ascending aorta, root and valve being replaced.
Surgery went from 7:30am to 10pm. The blood bank ran out of O- that day in a larger part during the 5 minutes he had 4 fingers plugging the hole to I was put back on the bypass machine which was 7 minutes total. That was another scary aspect of that day.

On the Sep 4th, I had a catheter procedure to block off a bronchial artery to the pulmonary artery that started high on the descending artery. It was blocked off with 12 platinum coils. The surgeon and others he consulted with agreed that blocking it before surgery was better than after surgery. It wouldn't be easy accessed during surgery.

My heart goes out to you.

I am very sorry to hear the details. It seems that catching the aneurysm rupture during surgery was very fortunate. I am glad you came through that !
How is your recovery?

I started recovering well the day after surgery. I had a lot more recover to do given the extensiveness of everything. The 1st 2 months were rough due to lack of sleep, messed up taste buds etc. It took me 3 and a half months for food not to taste horrible and get to the point of the metallic issue some people have. I actually got my legs under me really quick and that helped a lot. The sternum and ribs still get some soreness and pain. The scar is barely visible at this point. The timing and the doctors I had at the right time was a blessing. I had about 3 ways to go. It wasn't just doctors, but THOSE doctors!

I just found out Wed Feb 19th that I have a 4.7 from the arch to 4.9 cm aneurysm to the dacron graft on the short remaining section of ascending aorta. It was 4.4cm Nov 15 2024. My bp has been well controlled since Sep 10th surgery. It was 4.8 when the root ruptured during surgery.

Sorry to hear that. Do you have any feedback from doctors yet?

sorry to hear ! What was the pre surgery measurement of your Ascending aneurysm? And it ruptured during surgery? I am confused

where was your surgery?