Jim's Photos

Two years ago March 15th  Debbie underwent the first of many procedures to repair her diseased aorta. Twelve hour open arch repair called a frozen elephant trunk. They also replaced two tissue heart valves with mechanical. Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland Ohio the largest and highest rated cardio vascular surgery centers in the US. We have had a very tough journey three other vascular surgeries, a TEVAR extension in her descending aorta in July 2023 450 mm long extending the repair to her celiac artery. September 2024 another EVAR extension to the SMA artery to seal an endoleak. An Iliac artery repair, a complication of the EVAR procedure to fix a dissected artery. She had survived so much, but we just didn't think she'd make it through the next open procedure to take the repair below the kidney arteries. Cleveland Clinic advised that should be the next procedure when strong enough. In November, we reached out to a vascular surgeon in Houston, Texas at Baylor Medicine. We had a Zoom appointment in November that gave us hope and scheduled an in person visit in March. We had a CT scan to check her current status, and he told us the good news. Her stent grafts are holding up well with no leaks, he recommended we return in a year. Dr Oderich at Baylor Medicine is a vascular surgeon that has been a pioneer in the branched, sleeved endovascular stent graft procedure for noninvasive aneurysm repair. He practiced at Mayo Clinic for 20 years before moving to Texas. Not only was her current state good news, he assured us he could repair the next section endo vascularly.