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
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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