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My husbands back was killing him so his doctor sent him for an MRI then they start treating him for kidney stones even though they didn't see any. After a year they decided that wasn't working, so they sent him for a second MRI and that is when they told us he had an Aneurysm which measured 4.8.

OK, films in hand we went to a Cardiac & Vascular surgeon who mentioned that by looking at the films from both MRI'S it had gone from 2.7 to a 4.8 which is nearing a dangerous point.

Of course both of us were dumbfounded, because we were never told that an aneurysm showed up on the first test. We have since learned to ask for a copy of the results of ALL tests taken.

I won't go further about this because it is not helpful information and that is what I want to explain here.

We were told that there are two ways this can be fixed, both required surgery. The first has been done for the past 20 years and proved to be successful, but, was quite complex and had a longer and slower recovery period. The newer less evading, and faster recovery rate was two years old, but lacked much data for it's success.

After the vascular doctor consulted with a number of doctors and the manufactures of this device called a stint, it was decided that my husband who is 75 years old was a good candidate for this new surgery and it was performed last Sept.

All went well for two months, and then my husband started getting pains in his legs. We went to the Vascular Surgeons office and a ultra sound was performed where they saw nothing wrong so they sent him to a back doctor.
Again this doctor couldn't find anything. Slowly the pain got worse and he was walking with a cane. He could take no more than ten steps and he had to stop.

I won't go into how we happen to go back to the Vascular doctor two months later, but they found at that time he had very little blood circulating in his right leg, and the stint was bent.

He went for surgery a second surgery the first of this year,where they had to open the one stint add an additional one to it and run that across his abdomen into the other leg, because the stint for that one had a blood clot in it.

It is now a month after his surgery and things seem fine, but of course, it is to soon to know if this one has be successful. I pray it is. Would we do this again, I doubt it. There are no guarantee's even the second one will work. We are very sorry we didn't have the first and successful operation.

Two things I would suggest, are: ask doctors for copies of your tests, they're yours and you have a right to copies of them and more important, ask your doctor how many times he has performed the surgery he is suggesting.