The update...

I'll make this as short and sweet as possible. It's good news and bad news. Bad news first, his valve has not shown significant narrowing however his valve is leaking a lot more. This forces us to re look at our plans for intervention. We had originally planned on him having a balloon catheter which is far less invasive than open heart surgery. This most likely won't be an option now. He will probably need to go right to surgery and his Doctor finally put a name to what operation he will probably need; Ross Konno Procedure. Yuck. Very complicated heart surgery. But I DID say there was good news; he doesn't have to go back in for 6 months! He has never been allowed this amount of time in between visits. His doctor said the leaking valve will not necessarily mean he needs surgery sooner. We will watch the gradients, and monitor the size of his left ventricle and take it from there. Please keep him in your prayers.