Hello All,

In December of 2019 I started to feel a drag on my energy and breathing ability. This probably started before December but that was when it really showed up in a big way with my wife, kids and grandkids and Cle Elum, Washington. We were sledding in the snow but after just a couple of runs up and down the hill I notice that I was becoming exhausted and when I took off my gloves my fingernails were turning blue.

The next month started 2.5-to-3-year journey to get to where I find myself having to again face heart surgery to replace my mitral valve. In my adult life this will be the third valve replacement.

When I the small child (three years old) I had an open-heart surgery to repair the mitral valve, this type of surgery was very experimental and only have been performed successfully for about four months. The doctors in the Midwest repaired a hole in the septum between the chambers of the heart and to correct a dimple in the mitral valve.  This correction lasted 45 years. 

In 2004 I had to have my mitral valve replaced with a mechanical valve, the first valve was too small for my needs and had to be replaced by a larger one in 2005. (Size does matter) I found it out in 2020 that the mechanical valve I have had begun leaking, this leak was causing my blood cells to be destroyed.  (My doctor said my heart was acting like a blender). The leaking caused me to have extreme anemia, which effected my breathing badly. The doctor tried twice (arthroscopically) to put in plugs to control leaking.  Both times I had them done, the plugs weren’t enough. The blood cells are still being destroyed in greater number than my body can replace them. This led to the decision to replace the valve with a pig valve. 

A flesh valve won’t cut up my cells anymore. In the next few weeks my wife and I will be preparing for our life to deal with me being without capacity to do much in the next two months.

With the new valve I’m very excited about many of things I will be able to stop doing like the warfarin (such bad bruising) and the iron supplements that turn my teeth black. I’m also excited with the addition of all the things I will be able to bring back into my life, fishing, hiking all those things that I love to do.