This website was originally intended to inform anyone that was interested in my Mitral Valve Repair Heart Operation to find out that I was OK after the operation and to follow my progress in the weeks that followed.

After talking to Eddie Andrews from the Blackpool Support Group, I decided that it would be a good idea not only to document my initial daily progress whilst in hospital, but to also add further information that could help others who may require an operation to repair or even replace the aortic or mitral valve.

Ever since I started talking to people once I had a date for my operation, I was amazed at the number of people who have had or know of people who have had heart surgery. One day whilst in hospital, walking the corridor for some exercise, I suddenly saw someone that I knew from work, but wasn't expecting a visit from him. He said he had come in for a Transoesophaheal Echo, where they put a tube down your throat under local anthestic, but they give you a drug so that you are conscious during the procedure, but after a sleep will not remember anything about it later. From this procedure they can get a better picture of any damage to the valves of the heart. It turned out that he'd recently had been for a Health screening offered where he works, and discovered that he in fact had a heart murmur, and that after other tests such as an ECG (Electrocardiogram), he was told that he could most likely require a Mitral Value Repair.

I have tried to include within each of the pages, a few photos that shout be relevant to that page.