My husband has had 4, yes 4 open heart surgeries, and he is only 52 years young.  The first 2 were when he was a teenager to repair a valve and the third was to replace the valve with a metal one.  After his last surgery in January 2005 to perform a quad bypass, his bypasses failed about a year and a half later, so the doctor was left with no choice but to insert stents into the original blockages as the surgeon said that he could not be opened back up - as there was nothing there to work with.  Now, we have just learned (via echo and stress test) that he is not receving adequate blood flow to the left side of his heart and they will be doing a cath on the 5th of February to see what is going on.  I am looking for some insight here as well as some hope as the team of doctors seem to think he has a bad hand of cards dealt to him.