Hello
There is an article in today's MOS on page 50 about keyhole surgery for heart patients like myself who are too frail to undergo further open heart surgery.
The new technique is being pioneered at the Royal Brompton and gives hope to many of us whose QOL has been affected by leaky heart valves which has led to AF.
For the first time for months I feel hope.
Link to article.
dailymail.co.uk/health/arti...
Thank you Seaside for putting the link up. I'm afraid my technical skills are very poor!
I think it being generally available is still a long time away. But perhaps by the time my aortic valve replaced in 2012 wears out. There will be a very long training needed for the surgeons doing it.
Have hope. My father had the aortic valve replaced 32 years ago. Last year, the top scientist at Papworth who did an echo on me, said he recently did someone with 40 years. Valves have improved since then. I am interested not so much in their failure, but in the type and speed of failure. Planned ops are usually safer than emergency ops.
Was it a tissue valve ? I had the head person do my scan three years and she reckoned that they can last well over 20 years. Speaking to the surgeon prior to my operation he said that one of the Big Three would probably get me first 
All the valves I referred to are metallic.
I did not want to be on Warfarin for life.
Warfarin for life is not that bad for most people. It is also much better than having two or more operations in a lifetime.
I worked with a lady who had been on it for many years after heart surgery. Her consultant at St Helier Hospital told her that he had never had a Warfarin patient develop cancer and he though that the " blood thinning effect " was the reason. She took that as gospel and continued smoking
Did the smoker have COPD? Personally, one of the most disgusting moments in the anatomy lab was when I had to handle some smokers lungs. That disgust is one of the rare upsetting feelings I wish to retain memories of.
But, curious about the possible protective factor against cancer. I wonder why.
She didn't have COPD at least when I knew her.
Aspirin is supposed to protect against some cancers including colon cancer.
Talking of COPD. One of my neighbours with COPD who never smoked was told that her lungs were like that of a 40 a smoker.
They concentrated so much on her COPD that they missed that she had AF.
One hears so many things about why cancer develops in one person and not another.I know of a fair number of people who have died of lung cancer and never smoked.Others who smoked well into their 80s and beyond and then passed away in their sleep as of 'old age'.
Cancer has no rules. My mother survived colon cancer in her late 60's and had a kidney with a tumour removed when she was 82 and lived until 92. Our daughter died of colon cancer when she was only 22 eight months after her first symptom that the hospital first said was constipation and piles.
I cannot imagine losing a child and feel deeply for you.I am struggling emotionally at the moment with the knowledge of a young nephew who has pancreatic cancer.
When someone is 21 doctors do not believe that with people of that age that it can be colon cancer. There were only two cases (both died) in the 16 to 23 age group that year. The other was a nurse at a Nottingham hospital.
Second Cardioversion this Sunday - a brief essay on hope
Today's the day Or is it? 
DVLA Notification Re Medical Conditions (Daily Mail Article)
open heart surgery for AF
Carry on Cardio!
