NEW ORLEANS -- What if you were faced with a grim decision -- risk your life by having surgery, or shorten your life by not having surgery? That is a decision that heart patients and their families have had to make.
But now, new technology is making that decision easy while saving lives.
Bill Massey, 81, of Picayune, Miss., has been through a lot of health problems with his heart.
"It scared me because I couldn't breathe. I couldn't get enough breath. I just felt like I was going to die really," Massey recalls.
Since 2009, he's had a heart attack, congestive heart failure, multiple blockages, stents in the arteries and bypass surgery. You can see his scars and the internal wires holding his chest bone together that remain. He wears the LifeVest, an external defibrillator with paddles, just in case his heart needs to be shocked back into a beating rhythm.
But this past fall, when he began having shortness of breath and needed another heart procedure to save his life, doctors said his heart was too weak for surgery.
Like Massey, a Covington heart patient has a similar health problem.
"He did an angiogram and found that I had two major blockages and, but I was not a candidate for surgery because my heart is very bad," said Gail DeLeon.
DeLeon, 67, had one artery 100 percent blocked, the other 60 percent.
No one should face such a grave decision in life -- die from the blockages, or risk dying in the surgery to open them up. Both patients faced an impossible choice.
But Massey and DeLeon were in the right place at the right time. Technology offered them a new choice using the world's smallest heart pump.
"It takes some of the load off the heart. It takes some of the load for pumping the blood out of the heart when the heart muscle is weak," explained Dr. Ali Amkieh, an interventional cardiologist on the Northshore.
It's called the Impella 2.5 by Abiomed. Here's how it works: During your procedure, a thin catheter is put in a vessel in the groin. Doctors run it all the way up through that vessel and into the heart.
On the catheter is a tiny pump that helps make sure enough blood is being pumped out of the heart, bringing all the organs enough oxygen. That is attached to a machine next the patient in the operating room.
Without this pump, the patients weak heart muscle is just not strong enough to do the job during surgery.
The Impella was approved by the FDA in 2008 but is still not common practice in hospitals. Massey and DeLeon were the first two patients to have surgery using the Impella in the Northshore area. Their doctors did the procedure at the Louisiana Heart Hospital in Lacombe.
"I would have died a lot earlier, and being able to have the surgery with the Impella and getting the two arteries open, because one of the arteries is the one they call the widow maker, and it was pretty well blocked," DeLeon said.
Massey said the Impella changed his outlook on life, from having no hope for the future, to one that's giving him more retirement years to fish and garden back home in Mississippi.
"I'm feeling a lot better everyday. I'm going to cardiac rehab twice a week and I'm getting stronger all the time. I'm not having any shortages of breath at all. I'm still weak. My legs are weak but I'm gaining strength," said Massey.
Bad heart conditions are more common in this area.
"Louisiana in general have a high risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, heart attack, high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, all the risk factors for arthrosclerosis and heart disease," said Dr. Amkieh.
Jan. 13, Massey and his wife celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary. One of their favorite pastimes is going to the casino, only now, Massey makes sure he puts in his half hour on the treadmill before he goes.
Insurance companies do pay for using the Impella pumping device during heart procedures.
An Ochsner Medical Center spokesperson says Ochsner doctors have had the Impella Technology since 2009 and have utilized the device in more than 60 patients with excellent clinical results.
West Jefferson Medical Center is now using the Impella Heart Pump.
For more information on Impella, click here.
