Addendum I

A couple things I forgot to mention from our meeting with Dr. M:

1) He said there's only a small chance (I think he said 10 to 15%) that I'll have to have my valve fixed again during my lifetime. 

2) He said there's a less than 1% chance that they'll get in there and have to replace my valve instead of repairing it. Therefore, he said I needed to choose what type of valve I would like: mechanical or biological. Mechanical would require that I take coumadin (blood thinner) the rest of my life, and be careful not to get too bruised (due to the blood thinner). He also said there would be a 2% chance, each year, of having some sort of issue that would require hospitalization of some sort. The biological (pig valve) is the preferred method these days because there is no need for blood thinner and the overall risk is less than the cumulative risk of the mechanical. Not that I'm going to need it, but I chose the biological.