Walking Time Bomb

2016 was the year I found out I was a walking time bomb. After three rounds of antibiotics failed to resolve a case of pneumonia, my doctor ordered a CT scan that revealed a worse problem: an ascending aortic aneurysm that required immediate surgery. If that ruptures, you’re dead on the floor. I found a nearby surgeon that did 12 to 18 of these procedures annually, but that wasn’t enough for me. What sold me on Dr. Roselli¹ and Cleveland Clinic was that Dr. Roselli had successfully completed more than 250 of my exact procedure the previous year.

My husband and I drove 13 hours in a snowstorm for the surgery in early April 2017. I was scheduled for a morning surgery, but Dr. Roselli got pulled into an emergency surgery on someone airlifted in from Canada until later that evening. I offered to wait until the following morning if he felt too tired to operate, but he said he would be fine. He stepped away for a few moments, and the nurses said I made him choke up because people don’t think to ask if he needed to rest.

Dr. Roselli operated on me that evening. I returned home with a new ascending aortic graft. My health has been excellent ever since. Now I’m an advocate for other people looking for heart surgery options outside our immediate area. The team at Cleveland Clinic was well worth the journey.

Kathleen Schlack lives in Washington, Illinois, where she has taught third grade for 44 years.