Larry's Profile

Family history of Aortic dissection with disastrous results. I was proactively monitoring this with regular exams after finding my aorta was dilated and aortic valve had regurgitation. My dilation got worse into aneurysm territory so my surgery was planned and proactive rather than emergency. My surgery was: valve sparing aortic root replacement, hemiarch replacement I'm luck to live in the Chicago area so a referral to Northwestern was easy for me. After examination at Northwestern the doctors I consulted with there recommend Dr. Malaisrie due to his expertise in the valve sparing surgery which involves aortic valve repair rather than replacement. My surgery went well with the only hiccup being a short occurrence of afib just before the planned discharge which extended my hospital stay a few days and left me on Warfarin for a few weeks post surgery. My recovery went well and I'm fully recovered and in good shape no (two years later as I write this). I will say that during the first year I probably thought I was more recovered than I was and that FULL recovery really takes about a year - although I think I was pretty fully functional within 4 months. The only lingering problem I have is random occurrences of an ocular migraine without headache, sometimes called an aura, which I first experienced in the hospital two days after my surgery. I get these a few times a month and it is basically a visual distortion that lasts about a half hour. No specific cause has been determined and nothing I've read, nor doctors have told me, relates this to my surgery other than the fact that it first onset after my surgery. It isn't a major problem.