Hi Brian:  I've been trying to drop you an e-mail for quite sometime and finally got up the nerve to do it.  I had my aortic dissection on  Dec. 2lst and 22nd.  They started on the 21st and after about 10 hrs, it was done.  My vascular surgeon told me he flatlined me twice, and I made it back and we got through it.  I don't remember too much except after the worst of it and the start.  I had a very excuriating pain shoot through my jaw and down to my chest and around to my back, and I don't think I will ever  forget it. 

 I was down in Mesa, AZ and I was a patient of Advanced Cardiac Specialists and had been under Dr. Z. Yilma's care for a few years.  I have a sent and in 3 months it plugged and I had to have angioplasty to clean it out.  I am still so tired that some days I don't know what to think.  I know they told me it would take about a year to recover.  I am still hoping I will get stronger and feel like kicking up my heels.  I have grafts from the surgery, three of them, and they are called prothestics (gore tag).  I think I have this right, I was in Boise, Idaho last week and they told me they do not do this surgery there yet.

I live in La Grande, Oregon and had been here, I would not have made it.  You need to be diagnosed almost immediately and so that was good, but I understand they have not  been doing this type of surgery for very long and don't know how long it will last.  I would kind of like to know what the prognosis is for this kind of surgery.  Can you let me know how yours happened and how it was and is?   I live in La Grande, Oregon and go to Apache Junction, AZ for the winter.  I am 72 yrs. old now, and female.  Please send me back an E-Mail as soon as you can conveniently do so.  Where do you live and where did you have your surgery? I had open heart surgery, my ribs sawed into and the whole bit and had a lot of work on the left side up high it starts in my neck and goes down where the ribs separate at the stomach area.  Then I have a 4-6 inch scar in my groin where they did something.

 I know a nerve got cut there as my left thigh on my leg is numb on the outside, the inside seems okay, but everything that bugs me is  on my left side. The carotid on my left side got narrowed and is at 50% now.  I am extremely fortunate to be alive and walking and talking and I thank my Lord.  He evidently wasn't through working on me!  I can't think of much more right now, but I know I will, so I am anxiously waiting for your response.

Thank you for reading this, 

Pat Peterson.

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