He's in my prayers and thoughts.
May God heal him swiftly and fully.

Prayers are nice, but if you know his family, have them do their research. There's undoubtedly one, or two, or three surgeons in the area who specialize in valve surgery. Find out who they are, and don't let anyone else do it. The absolute biggest predictor of success is the number of times that same surgery was done by the doctor doing it. Don't assumme that a guy who's done 500 bypasses is as good as someone who's done 500 valves.

I had my valve done (just a repair, replacement wasn't required - it was congenital, not infectious damage) by a guy who has done probably a couple of hundered year for the last 10 years and I was back at work two weeks later.