Phil Graham has heart surgery

[greeneyed]

Summary from today's CT:

Raider's heart on the line

Canberra Raider Phil Graham is confident of being available for the opening NRL match next year despite having had a heart operation on Friday.

Graham, 24, underwent surgery to fix heart palpitations where the heart beats faster than the body can handle.

Surgeons made an insertion into Graham's groin and fed several wires up to his heart to fix the problem.

Doctors used one of the wires to hear the heart, which brought on another attack.

After finding the trouble area, they burnt away at the section to rid the region of further problems.

Graham has suffered from the ailment for the past 10 years. Whether warming up for a match or sitting on his couch at home watching television, the outside back's heatbeat would increase to an unsafe level about three to four times a week.

While the problem had not developed into a life threatening one, Raiders doctor Ian Murphy suggested Graham have the operation now to prevent any possible long term damage.

The operation went for five hours.

Doctors ordered Graham to complete rest for the remainder of December before progressing to light training in the new year for at least a fortnight.

He can resume normal training with his teammates in mid January.

Graham said that while he never had second thoughts about having the procedure, he admitted to 'slight nerves' when the doctor was informing him of possible complications during the operation.

"It was all a pretty minimal chance that anything could go wrong but it's still not much fun sitting there listening to the doc telling you" he said.

"No one is really sure what brings on the palpitations but I guess the main thing is everything is fixed up now and I've come through it okay."