Declan (#2 son) goes for a heart operation on Tuesday 17th. He's 4 and a half years old.
Declan has had Valvar Aortic Stenosis since he was very young which is where one of the valves to his heart is tight and restricts the blood flow. If it pushed the blood back the wrong way it would kill him pretty rapidly. A couple of years ago he had a balloon put in his heart valve to stretch it which worked but they split the valve by stretching it too far. Now the valve leaks quite badly.
Because the valve that's faulty is at the back the operation to replace it isn't going to be straightforward. He will be on full heart bypass for about 4-5 hours. They will be removing the valve from the back and replacing it with the valve from the front because it should carry on growing with him as it's his own tissue. They will then replace the valve at the front with an artificial one.
*EDIT* The operation has been put back until Wednesday.