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Opinion

92-year-old finds hope in Independent's medical reporting

Surprise reader underwent same revolutionary heart valve procedure as fellow resident

OPINION — My name is Stuart Costello and I’ve lived in Surprise for the past 27 years. I just read Jason Stone’s wonderful article about Hector Garcia and the medical procedure that he underwent in January.

I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Paul Sorajja this year and in May he performed the same procedure on me. I am 92 years old and in 1994 I had triple bypass surgery. At that time the only thing the surgeon could do was add a ring to my mitral valve, which he told me would last for several years, but he couldn’t of course know for how long.

After many years I started to develop a leak in the valve, which only continued to get worse. Nothing could be done until 32 years later Dr. Sorajja and his family moved to Phoenix and as the saying goes, “the rest is history.”

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