A status report:
I had the coronary angiogram today and it went as well as the doctor had hoped. There were no blocked or occluded arteries in my heart. Granted, there were a couple of areas where there was some narrowing but nothing that needed any additional attention. They said that wasn't bad for a 69 year old meat-eater 
So I have to talk to my cardiologist tomorrow as he was going to immediately check with the heart valve specialists at Ceder Sinai Hospital to see when I can get in for the actual valve replacement surgery. I'm hoping that I can get in there before the holidays as I would just as soon not have to wait for another month or so.
As for the coronary angiogram itself, while I wouldn't want to go through that every day, it was a better experience than I had expected. The procedure started at 10:00am and I was on my way home by 2:30pm. While they claim that you'll probably sleep though the approximately one hour that 'you're on the table', I never did. They gave me something that they said would relax me and reduce the discomfort and would probably knock me out, but despite the wooziness I was awake the entire time. They let me keep my glasses on so I was able to watch the whole thing on one of the computer monitors in the room. They ran something like 5 or 6 wires up my femoral artery (through the groin) and then injected a dye that could be seen in real-time on an x-ray display. Anyway, while they found no blockages it was still interesting watching those wires being snaked around your coronary arteries. The only real discomfort, once they numbed the area where they cut into the groin, was the movement while the doctors had to push and pull the wires as this was all done by hand while watching the computer monitors. There was no pain in my chest, just where they were pushing on the skin and muscle hear the 'portal' where the wires were being fed. But since they found no real problems, they were in and out in a little less than an hour. Now I have to take it easy a couple day to make sure the the 'plug/seal' they stuck in the incision in the groin does not spring a leak. It will dissolve in a few days so until then I have to be extra careful.
So hopefully we'll hear something from the cardiologist tomorrow and will have a better idea of what will happen next and when it'll be.
So thanks for your prayers (they seem to have worked so far)...
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