Robert's Profile

I have not had surgery yet, but am being told the time has come to have it done. I was diagnosed with mild Mitral Valve Prolapse about 30 years ago. It stayed that way for a very long time. 8 years ago I was diagnosed with moderate Aortic regurgitation, and told that my "numbers" were borderline for surgery. For the past 8 years the condition gradually got worse. However until last year I had no symptoms. Last year I reached a point where there were activities I could no longer do due to be out of breath. My last two years of echo showed severe aortic regurgitation, and moderate to severe mitral. Hence now my doctor wants me to get the surgery. I'm very scared of open heart surgery, heart lung bypass, etc. I was hoping I could wait it out until the JennaValve Trilogy was approved and I could get TAVR (I have no stenosis so current TAVR valves are not viable). Also I will want to pick a hospital. My local hospital, UVA medical center in Charlottesville is not ranked so after getting "setup" I probably want to go elsewhere (not sure how to do that, I'm on Medicare plan G so insurance isn't an issue). If I could get the JennaValve I would want to go to Atlanta Piedmont as they ran the trials. Otherwise Penn Medicine would be an option as my daughter lives in the Philadelphia area. However, NYU Langone and Mount Sinai are the 2 best rated hospitals. Not sure what to do.