Here's What's Hot On CBS11TV.COM:
Apr 24, 2008 10:04 pm US/Central
Device Heals The Heart Of North Texas Woman
DALLAS (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
A North Texas woman is alive, thanks to a mechanical device that repaired her diseased heart.
The family of Sandy Gaddis is amazed by the medical miracle because they were told to prepare for a funeral. Gaddis, 51, didn't have weeks or days to live - doctors told her she had only hours.
Last December Gaddis' doctor told her she had the flu, but within days she couldn't stand, couldn't walk and she was fainting repeatedly. Her heart was failing and doctors suggested her family say their goodbyes.
"I did not say goodbye, I said, I love you," Gaddis' brother Scott Coley explained. "I said I will always be here for you. Anything you need you let me know and I just left out of the room."
Gaddis was flown to Baylor Medical Center Dallas - where doctors rushed to implant a mechanical heart. The device is a left ventricular assist device (IVAD) and it saved Gaddis' life.
"I have just always told people that Sandy has a heart the size of Texas," her husband Doug told CBS 11 News.
Gaddis' mechanical heart weighed less than seven pounds. "It was loud and I called it my beast because it sounded like a bull getting ready to charge," she said.
That "beast" amazed even the doctor who implanted it. During a required test, when they carefully slowed it down and turned it off, doctors found that Gaddis' own heart was working well enough to wean her off the mechanical heart.
Just this week, a new smaller mechanical heart has been approved. The devices are called a bridge to transplantation. "It lasts a lot longer than the current devices we have," said Dr. Dan Meyer with Baylor Medical Center.
Gaddis told CBS 11 News, "God has a reason for me being here. There's a purpose. You know he could have took me, but he didn't."
Doctors at Baylor say worldwide only 24 patients have been able to be weaned off the mechanical heart.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
CBS Mobile Launches Local News iPhone Apps
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Reporting
Comments