Mary's Profile

I am 64 and in the UK. I was diagnosed with lupus and fibromyalgia about 8 years ago and as part of the initial investigations was found to have a moderately leaky mitral valve. So I had annual echos and told everything was fine until last December. I was then told the leak was verging on severe and that I would need surgery. This was 6 weeks after my husband had had an urgent triple CABG, so I was pretty traumatised by the news. The other complication was that I was booked in for a left hip replacement! Fortunately my cardiologist agreed that I needed the hip replacement done as a priority otherwise I would never be able to manage cardiac rehab.