Howie...sorry to hear about your problem. One thing to keep in the back of your head, if need be, is that I can get some references/recommendations for you if you do the surgery route (if that's even and option, which I doubt) because of where I work. Dept of Medicine at UAB. UAB has been on the leading edge of Heart Surgery/Transplant/etc since day one. We have some of THE best heart people at UAB, bar none. One of the divisions under the dept of med is Cardiology, and then the Dept of Surgery has the surgical side of the treatments. Point is that I'll do what I can here to at least find out about people for you...they all know each other.
On the other side of things, I personally would not hesitate in taking the meds, getting things regulated, and continuing my life as before, exercising appropriate caution, of course, and not taking unnecessary risks (wear your f'ing helmet). I've been on cholesterol meds for over 15 years...it works for me and it's just an automatic thing I do right before bedtime. No where near the same thing as what you're having to take, but these meds do work. Surgery should always be the last resort, IMO, when other options have been exhausted.