9am update

She's been back for 2hours now. Dr. Holloran's nurse just came to give us an update. He had to make a longer incision than he wanted to. He was hoping for an abbreviated 4in. incision but did have to open the entire length of the sternum (breast bone). The valve is in pretty bad shape (as we already knew). He was somewhat surprised by the condition of the aorta which is the large vessel that exits from the aortic valve from the top of the heart, delivering the blood to the brain and to the major aorta artery, down to the body. The portion of the aorta that is immediately exiting the aortic valve has a lot of "calcification" in it, making the blood flow through this area not too great either. I'm not sure why that didn't show up throughout all her testing but it didn't. He is examining that area specifically and taking some measurements but he is expecting the need to replace a portion of this vessel also. This will add about 1.5 hours on to the surgery. Other than that, the surgery is off to a good start. He was a little surprised with his visual findings but is prepared to take care of the problem today. They expect the surgery to take until about 12:30 today.