Vim & Vigor - Spring 2011 - North Mississippi - (Page 4)

C Christine Jones of Dumas was able to take advantage of Impella technology. hristine Jones of Dumas desperately needed heart surgery, but her age and other health issues were stacked against her. In October 2010, the 81-year-old from Tippah County says she came to the Emergency Department at North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo with “heaviness” in her chest and feeling “awfully sick.” After a battery of preliminary heart tests, cardiac catheterization revealed several blockages in the blood vessels to her heart. Jones is no stranger to heart disease; she suffered her first heart attack in 1995, followed by one in 2000 and another in January 2010. “Because of her age, her weak heart and some other medical problems, the cardiothoracic surgeons deemed that she was not a candidate for surgery,” says Barry Bertolet, M.D., a cardiologist on the medical staff at NMMC’s Heart Institute. Keeping the Blood Flowing Ordinarily, the next step would be balloon angioplasty, a procedure in which cardiologists use a balloon to inflate a blocked artery and insert a stent to keep it propped open. But that procedure was also risky for Jones. Pump It Up NMMC uses new technology for weak hearts 4 Vim & Vigor • SP R I N G 2 011 “Her heart was already a weak muscle and couldn’t withstand any additional insult,” Bertolet says. “If we were to work on the left main artery, we would cut off about two-thirds of her heart function, maybe only for seconds, but it was still too dangerous.” When even the maximum doses of medication failed to relieve her chest pain, Bertolet offered Jones another alternative: a high-risk intervention using artificial heart

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Vim & Vigor - Spring 2011 - North Mississippi

Vim & Vigor - Spring 2011 - North Mississippi
Table of Contents
Opening Thoughts
Pump It Up
Heart of the Matter
Every Minute Counts
A Workout for Every Mood
Don’t Fail Your Heart
If Your Bones Could Talk
Healthy Travels
Over 40 and Fabulous
Do-It-Yourself Health?
Fighting Words
Balancing Act
Giving & Getting
Brighten Up
Welcome Aboard
Catch the Spirit

Vim & Vigor - Spring 2011 - North Mississippi