The Catalyst Issue 13 | Winter/Spring 2012 | Page 20

Summer and Mike Gilmer with (left) Dr. Enrique Gongora and Dr. Kenton J. Zehr. Advanced technology helps patients with heart and lung failure and saves other patients’ lives, too BREATHING NEW LIFE earching for a square foot to stand among the medical equipment and instruments keeping his wife, Summer, alive, Mike Gilmer spent days and nights at her bedside in the Cardiac Intensive Care S 20 The Catalyst Winter/Spring 12 | sw.org Unit (CICU) at Scott & White. He whispered in her ear, prayed for her, and hoped for any sign of life from her in the desperate situation in which they found themselves. In February 2011, Mrs. Gilmer, 32-weeks pregnant with her fifth child, had been diagnosed with an abscess at the root of her aorta that was caused by an infection of an abnormal aortic valve. She was diagnosed at Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center in Waco, a partner