We found out that my dad has to have open heart surgery next week!  🙁  For awhile now he’s been having chest pain, but ignored it somewhat. He told my brother Greg about it (who is a cardiac PA) who then listened to his heart.  Dad  has always had a slight murmur (rheumatic fever twice when he was a kid) but this time the murmur was way worse. Greg told him to have it checked immediately, which he did.  Bad news… he has critical aortic stenosis, which means the aortic valve is just a tiny little hole right now for the blood to get through.  That would explain the pain and him being so tired (not enough oxygen getting out to his body).   The scary thing is that at any time, if something were to block that off, he would die.  Today, he went in for an angiogram and with the exception of the valve, everything looked OK.  No bypasses will be needed, but it’s still a major surgery that will take 6-8 weeks of recovery. They’ll completely open him up and put in a bioprosthetic valve (from a cow).  We are all very thankful to Greg for his experience and insight into this.  He probably saved Dad’s life.  Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.