Where to start?

So, It worked pretty well last time when Ann/Kelly had surgery in Buenos Aires to do a blog and so I decided to do a new blog to keep people up to date with this surgery.  I say Ann/Kelly because her family calls her Ann but I call her Kelly and because I'm writing this, I will call her Kelly.  Just know that she is the same person and, of course, you may call her whatever name you prefer.

So again, I assume that most all of you know the basic story.  Kelly has an ascending aortic aneurysm, a swelling of the aorta as it comes out of the heart, that needs to be repaired.  She also has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the interventricular septum, the muscular wall between the left and right ventricles of the heart.  This swelling interferes with blood flow and is likely the cause of her decreased exercise tolerance, the only symptom that she has really had.  The surgery will be long, about 7 hours and we won't really know much of anything new until a afterwards.

We are going to Atlanta to see kelly's family on Friday, staying over Easter weekend, then going to Cleveland on Monday.  Kelly starts her pre-surgery workup on Tuesday, 4/3.  It's basically back to back clinic visits and outpatient procedures.  She has more pre-op on Wednesday and Thursday and then surgery on Friday.  They assume five days in the hospital after surgery and then a Clinic visit three days later - but that falls on a weekend - so likely five days later.  We hope to fly home April 16 or 17th.

We are very optimistic that all will work out well.  Cleveland Clinic (CC) does more of these operations than anywhere else in the world.  Their mortality rate is incredibly low, around 1%, which includes patients who are very sick prior to the operation - Kelly is not.  Her surgeon will be Per Wierup, a guy from Sweden who trained at CC - https://my.clevelandclinic.org/staff/22492-per-wierup
Anyway, I will try to keep this up to date.  I am happy for anyone to add whatever as a comment. Let me know if there is any problem opening the blog or any errors.  I will send the link to this blog to the sibs and friends and ask that they share it with their children and anyone else who they feel might be interested.

Here is Kelly's latest letter:

Dear Family,

Here is what my schedule has looked like for the last year and a half: get up  whenever it feels right in the morning. Eat. Walk. Putz around and maybe do some other stuff. Eat. Read. Go to sleep when I am sleepy. A perfectly reasonable schedule I think.

I just read the packet info from Cleveland Clinic. Here is their idea of a schedule. Tuesday April 3 Start testing at 8:00am. EKGs, MRIs, CT scans, ECHOS, office visits etc. etc. etc. Last test start at 4:00. No food until the end of the day - wait, I must have read that wrong I think. Wednesday heart catheterization (time to be determined). Thursday all day meetings with surgical team, admitting, etc starting at 8:00. They say plan to be there all day and bring a snack. Snack?!! I want a big prime rib steak with all the trimmings after thinking about all this. Friday April 6 surgery, time not yet available but probably early. And probably I cannot eat.

My schedule was WAY better.

We are mostly packed. My bag has lots of socks to go with my hospital gowns. I will be warmly styling. Plane leaves at 6:00 am tomorrow morning. Stupid time. We go to Atlanta to see the Sullivan side of my family.

Sending much love and more later,
Kelly