Jamey Tucker
Sep 8, 2018 · 3 min read

My Bentall Procedure

For over 40 years my annual visit with a cardiologist ended the same way: “you’re good to go, see you next year”. I took the good news for granted, joking with my doctor as I walked out the door.

My mother tells me that it was a routine visit to the pediatrician when I was 5 or 6 when the doctor told her I had a congenital heart defect where the aortic valve wasn’t operating correctly. Rather than allowing blood to flow through the valve normally, it flapped a bit inside, letting blood rush back out of the aorta.

My parents were told that one day I’d have to get that valve replaced, maybe in my 30s or 40s. He told my dad, “by then they may be able to fix it with a pill.”

Every year I went in for a an MRI so that the cardiologist could see if the valve had gotten worse. Sometime in my 40s I was told it had caused an aneurism in the aorta, causing it to balloon and posing a bigger concern.

I’ve never had trouble with my heart. I’ve been very active, lifting weights, playing sports. On the night before my annual visit to the cardiologist I had played 4 games of volleyball with no symptoms whatsoever.

When I told my excellent cardiologist, Dr. Joseph Fredi at Vanderbilt University Medical Center about my volleyball exploits the night before, playing with guys 10–20 years younger than me, he said “That’s a tribute to your strong heart. You could have died out there.”

Asymptomatic deaths due to aortic dissection is more common than I imagined. The diseased aorta just bursts, flooding the body with blood. Many times the person dies before help can arrive. “Sudden death” is how Dr. Fredi described it.

I was told that surgery was needed. Soon. I was told to stop playing volleyball, stop walking fast, stop exercising, stop drinking caffeine, don’t get upset, don’t lose your cool. Sudden death might be the result.

I have a wife and three children. I did what Dr. Fredi said.

Two weeks later I was back at Vanderbilt to meet with a surgeon who explained I would need surgery called “Bentall Procedure”. He would cut my chest open, stop by heart, freeze by body to 18-degrees. A surgical team would break open the breast bone, remove the diseased aorta and aortic root, detached them from the capillaries, replace it with a graft that looks like something you’d buy at Lowes or Home Depot, then sew me back up.

“The valve replacement is routine, the Bentall procedure is more risky,” he said. “About a 6% mortality rate”.

A few days later a heart-cath was scheduled to find out if there was any blockage. If there was, doctors would fix that at the same time. There was no blockage. Otherwise, my heart is just fine.

Now I have three weeks before the surgery. I received a packet in the mail today with details of the surgery and a recommendation that I prepare a will and living will in the event things don’t go well. Stroke is a possibility during and immediately following the surgery. So is a heart attack.

While I’m anxious, nervous and quite frankly, scared, I cannot help but feel grateful that I didn’t collapse on the volleyball court this summer. It could have happened. Sudden death, right there with my buddies and my son close by.

Jamey Tucker

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Tech TV reporter in Nashville. I sing in the car