Landon Summers

About 11 years ago Landon experienced a life threatening aortic dissection. He was taken to emergency surgery back then and had his first massive heart surgery and recovered well. For the last 11 years his aorta has remained stable on follow up CT scans but he was left with chronic aortic/heart problems from that original dissection. Earlier this year, a CT scan revealed an enlarging aorta, again at risk for another threatening dissection if this was not repaired. He underwent a 2nd heart surgery in January of this year followed by several vascular surgeries after that trying to get blood flow corrected and his aorta fixed again. His first surgery in January didn’t completely fix the aorta problem so he was then referred to UAB for another heart surgery. While awaiting his third heart surgery his gallbladder attacked him and he had to have a gallbladder drain placed for six weeks and his infected inflamed gallbladder taken out before they would do the 3rd heart surgery. He made it thru the gallbladder surgery and finally on August 15th underwent his 3rd open heart surgery that took approximately 9hrs to fix his aorta again. He survived the long hard heart surgery and did well for about a week after surgery but then suffered a massive bleeding stroke last Wednesday. This stroke has left him with no function of his right side and he is not able to speak and comprehend well. It has been a long, hard year for Landon and he has been thru so much pain with numerous procedures and surgeries.