Talking with Dr. Schorlemmer MD

After dad had to be put under again because of how poorly he was functioning right after surgery, it took him extra long to wake up again. They finally let us go see him around 8:30 pm. He was still very sleepy. At first he would respond to mom talking to him by opening his eyes and barely moving his hand.

Bob, Tasha, mom and I stood by his side and talked with the nurses for quite a while. After a while another Dr. came in and tried to stimulate him to wake up. He tried to get dad to wiggle his fingers and he pinched his toes. Dad didn't respond to either of these but he did open his eyes, stick out his tongue and nodded.

The doctors and nurses were hoping he would respond a little quicker than he was but they weren't too concerned. They said everyone is different and he is just taking a little longer.

At about 10:00 pm Tasha and mom left to go home. Bob was planning on staying the night and I wanted to just stay a little longer.

I'm glad I did stay because Dr. Schorlemmer came to assess dad just a few minutes after Mom and Tasha left. I was very impressed with Dr. Schorlemmer. He is incredibly sharp and he gave great detail in explaining everything to me. You can tell he is so passionate about what he does and he cares so much about his patients. Mom found out that he was planning on going out of town for Thanksgiving but because of dad's situation, he decided to stay. He talked to me and Bob for a good 45 mins.

Before he talked to us he talked to dad and I was so happy to see that dad moved each leg for the doctor and even lifted them both up at the same time. He nodded, followed the doctor with his eyes, and moved his hand. It was very good to see him respond to that extent finally.

The image below is a before and after of the main blood vessel. You can see how the blood flow is much stronger on the vessels that branch out right and left in the after image and there are not as many vessels that are leaking. He showed me this image and another one and sat there and explained what was going on in the images for about 15 minutes but it was definitely way over my head. He did keep saying though that the picture on the right "just looks beautiful."

As the doctor was talking to me he said something that I will never forget. He said that what dad has gone through "is the worst thing that can happen to the human body." I was so shocked to hear this I made him repeat it. The reason being that the aorta and the blood vessel that was split effects every organ in the body. There is blood supply branching out to the kidneys, lungs, gut, etc. When the dissection occurred the blood flow to each of these organs could have been compromised. He said dad is in such a critical phase. Only time will tell whether or not these organs will be effected. He said the first 24 hrs they are worried about the back and paraplegia, the next day they worry about the lungs and kidneys, and the next day they worry about the gut (I hope I remembered that all correctly). He said there have been patients who have done really well but by the forth day the gut hasn't received enough blood so it starts to die and the patient just goes downhill from there. He did say that while they were in surgery there an excess amount of acid in the stomach which is not a good sign. At this point he is concerned as to why it was there. He said it might be a concern or it might not. A little while later a nurse brought a test result back and he said "oh good, the acid in the stomach has reduced."

He said as they move forward they will try to treat one problem at a time because each medication they add will effect everything else in the process. As he was explaining all the many many risks I said "wow, it's very complicated," and he said "complicated probably isn't the right word." I said "complicated would be an understatement?" He said "a major understatement."

He also said "I usually stop worrying about these patients after about 5 years." There are just so many hurdles they have to cross. So many things that can go wrong.

He told me this surgery is only 10 years old and in those 10 years he has probably performed 50 of these surgeries. He said all of them have been successful but two. He did say though that he couldn't blame the surgery for those cases because those patients had a lot more going on than just the aortic dissection.

He also explained to us that he is generally more aggressive in treating an aortic dissection by going in and repairing it than most doctors but he said in his experience, it is the best way to treat it. Patients who have the surgery have a much better chance at survival.