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A Time Bomb
On Saturday afternoon, Roseann was feeling well enough to walk down to the lobby with Joe to visit Anthony and more than a dozen relatives. "At this point, we were thinking Roseann was having pregnancy complications that would disappear once the babies were born. We certainly didn't suspect anything serious," Joe says. "We were talking and laughing like we always do when we all get together."
After two hours, Joe walked his wife back to her room. That's when things took a horrible turn for the worse. By 4 p.m., Roseann's pain was so fierce, she couldn't straighten up. Joe knew he had to do something more to help his wife. "I tracked down a labor and delivery doctor, and she could see I wasn't my usual upbeat and talkative self," says Joe. "Those past few days, all I could do was hold Roseann's hand. I couldn't do anything to make her feel better. I was desperate."
Finally, an echocardiogram, a test that uses sound waves to create a moving picture of the heart, was done. And by 8 p.m., the terrifying results were in: Roseann had a dissected aorta, a two- to three-inch-long tear in the inner lining of her main artery that provides blood flow to her heart and other organs. The tear formed a bubble of blood between the layers of the aorta, which could have either burst or blocked blood flow to other major arteries, including the one pumping oxygen to the triplets. It was a time bomb that threatened her life -- and the lives of her babies.
When Frank C. Seifert, MD, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Stony Brook University Hospital, learned of Roseann's condition, he knew he had to act fast. Half of all people with an aortic dissection die if it's not detected and repaired within the first 48 hours of the initial tear. "At any time after the tear began, Roseann could have ruptured her aorta and died," explains Dr. Seifert, who acknowledges that a dissected aorta can spread as fast as a run in a stocking. "Or, the tear could have spread to other blood vessels to the head or abdomen, including those that supply the uterus."
Not only was the ripped aorta life-threatening to the babies, but the surgery to correct it also posed risks. Roseann's body needed to be cooled to 52 degrees and her heart stopped for 90 minutes to repair the tear -- conditions that each could have decreased her blood flow significantly and killed the triplets. The babies needed to be delivered, even though they were eight weeks premature, before Roseann could undergo the open-heart surgery to repair the tear. The doctors were racing against the clock to save the lives of the babies and their mother.
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