disorder which is connective tissue disorder that causes spontaneous rupture of arteries and organs. so his journey started off with an aortic dissection back in 2005, which sort of the only analogy the surgeon made to me at the time was the actor john ritter. kelly: the tear in the heart. the tear in the lining of the aorta. and my husband has an underlying disease that caused his dissection. so our journey continued beyond that. he we want to work one morning and didn t come home for six weeks. then it was an more thanking surgery. we went to the cleveland clinic. kelly: those are a lot of surgeries and a lot of expense on you not only emotionally, but certainly financially. sure. kelly: how did you get help or what did you have to do? what did you go through? we ve been through a lot. obviously as you said, financially, the time we had a business. we ve lost the business.
leading away from the heart. john ritter in 2003 this was the same thing that he had. and at first people thought it was a heart attack but in fact it was this aortic dissection. certainly our thoughts and prayers are with his family. david, appreciate you coming on. paul begala, dr. sanjay gupta, jill dougherty. let us know what you think. up next, president obama s tax deal with republicans, how he changed his position to get it. how john mccain has done a 180 of his own on taxes, too. and the chances the deal will go through after clearing a big hurdle today. later the fallout from bernie madoff s ponzi scheme, a really tragic horrific development over the weekend. another life claimed, this time his son s. [ female announcer ] experience dual action power
what we now know somebody that has chest pain like that you think about the heart being potentially a problem here. this is different. this is not a problem with the heart specifically. there s a major blood vessel that carries the blood away from the heart called the aorta. as you might imagine blood is flowing very fast. high pressure through that aorta. and sometimes you can get a tear in one of the inner layers of the aorta and then blood sort of starts seeping into the wall of the aorta. why does it tear? it s unclear for sure. there s a couple of main risk factors for it. one is hypertension, high blood pressure. and that high blood pressure over time can sort of erode the inner layer of the aorta. sometimes people may have a genetic predisposition because the tissue is not as strong as well in that area but usually that hypertension is sort of the main culprit. is it something that can be caught with an ultrasound or something like that? it s a great question. typica
occurs. he had actually had heart problems in the past and i think they were keeping a close eye on him. just to be clear, heart issues are different. when people have blockages of the blood vessels going to the heart, that is a much more common thing. obviously, people are much more well versed on heart disease. this is the major blood vessel leading away from the heart. john ritter back in 2003, this was the same thing that he had. at first people thought it was a heart attack. but in fact it was this aortic dissection. certainly our thoughts and prayers are with his family, with kati and his kids. david, appreciate you coming on. paul begala and jill dortdy. let us know what you think. up next, president obama s tax deal with the republicans. how he changed his position to get it. how john mccain has done a 180 of his own on taxes too and the chances the deal will go through after clearing a big hurdle today. we ll tell you about that.
common thing. and obviously people are much more well versed on heart disease. this is the major blood vessel leading away from the heart. john ritter in 2003 this was the same thing that he had. and at first people thought it was a heart attack but in fact it was this aortic dissection. certainly our thoughts and prayers are with his family. david, appreciate you coming on. paul begala, dr. sanjay gupta, jill dougherty. let us know what you think. up next, president obama s tax deal with republicans, how he changed his position to get it. how john mccain has done a 180 of his own on taxes, too. and the chances the deal will go through after clearing a big hurdle today. later the fallout from bernie madoff s ponzi scheme, a really tragic horrific development over the weekend. another life claimed, this time his son s. we asked people all over america where the best potatoes come from.