Elia Contreras wasn’t supposed to live past five years old, according to the news her parents received after what started as a routine checkup when she was just a few months old. Now, almost 50 years later, Elia has defied the odds and continues to thrive year after year.
For Joe Pompa, family is everything; it’s his driving force in all that he does. He knows that to be his best, he needs to be healthy. His commitment to health is why Joe schedules routine doctor’s visits and screenings.
He’d felt a similar sensation before, but usually just for a minute or two. This time it persisted. He happened to have a pulse oximeter nearby, and he put it on his finger while he was still seated. His heart rate kept rising: 150, 160, 170. He called to his wife in the other room. “...
Harris County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Raymond Hubbard has faced many situations that have left him breathless over his 25-year career in law enforcement. But last February, walking up his stairs at his home in Richmond to play with his then 2-year-old daughter, he couldn’t breathe and...
By June, following a transesophageal echocardiogram, in which an ultrasound probe is deployed down the throat to get a closer look at the heart, Dr. Dadu confirmed what he had suspected – Cordell was suffering from mitral valve regurgitation.
Jason Belin faces dangerous situations regularly. The 45-year-old Pearland resident works as a firefighter for the Houston Fire Department at Station 102 in Kingwood. But during a training session in June at the Department’s Fire Academy, Belin experienced something scarier than the situati...
Darrel Sisson believed he was the picture of health. The 65-year-old north Houston resident had been lifting weights and doing aerobic exercise for 38 years, frequently rode his bike on 10- mile trips, meditated regularly and rarely took any medication. So, when he felt tired and not himself on t...
“Mrs. Voss had a symptomatic severe stenosis in her right carotid artery, which was the source of her stroke,” Dr. Saqib said. “The severe blockage placed her at a higher risk of a recurrent stroke. We needed to intervene to prevent another, potentially severe, stroke. The highe...
On March 3 of this year, Simien, under general anesthesia, had a MitraClip device inserted through a catheter, or hollow tube, and threaded to his heart from the femoral artery in his groin. Using real-time images produced by ultrasound and X-ray technology in the catheterization lab at Memorial ...
For as long as she can remember, Karen Wanjura suffered from a burning discomfort in her upper abdomen after she ate. A common symptom of gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD, the burning became a way of life that the 71-year-old resident of Cypress learned to accept. It was caused by a non-f...
After suffering a heart attack at just 27 years old, Victoria Guajardo was placed in a medical coma and transported 330 miles to Houston, where doctors discovered both of her ventricles were failing. Watch the video to learn how doctors at the Larry D. Johnson Heart & Vascular Institute at Me...
Houston Deputy Sheriff Bryan Durham recalls the day he first felt something was wrong. “I was arresting a suspect who had become combative. I wrestled him for about 30 seconds to get him into handcuffs, and it felt like I had fought for an hour. After I subdued him, I couldn’t catch m...
After visiting Mr. Lee's Pearland convenience store one morning, as he had every day for 16 years, Officer Castillo noticed Mr. Lee didn't greet him as normal. As Officer Castillo turned the corner, he saw Mr. Lee laying on the ground bleeding from his head. "I told him to hang in there as the m...
The team rushed Oscar to the heart catheterization lab to clear the blockages in the stent. But scar tissue from the heart attack had begun to form on his heart and he developed life-threatening arrhythmias called a ventricular tachycardia storm, basically, a severe electrical storm in his hea...
George Grabowski, PhD, a physically active 64-year-old, is among those who benefited from the minimally invasive option. Last August, his internist Clifford Yut, MD, heard a heart murmur and referred Dr. Grabowski to Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Hospital for an echocardiogram. A diagnosis of se...
Forty-six-year-old Luis Perez was driving with a friend on a Saturday night when he felt a small pain and a sensation of pressure in his middle upper back. He pulled over, called 911, and was immediately rushed to nearby Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital and immediately transferred to the Larry...
Floyd went to the heart doctor because of a family history of heart disease and death. After experiencing consistent heart burn and indigestion symptoms he went to see the specialists at Memorial Hermann Heart & Vascular Institute. After receiving a ventricular stress test, his physician said...
Angelina was on an overnight flight in Louisville, Kentucky when she was awoken by strong heart palpitations. The very next day, she flew home to Houston, TX and saw a cardiologist. An echocardiogram showed an enlarged and weak heart. Dr. Jalal and the affiliated team at Memorial Hermann Southwes...
32-year-old Jennifer Cooper Cheak was playing with her 3-week-old baby and son when she started to feel tightness and pressure in her chest. A few minutes later, she experienced a heart attack and was rushed to a local hospital. She was transferred to Larry D. Johnson Heart & Vascular Institu...
After receiving a heart transplant in 1994 due to a Sudden Cardiac Death attack, Clarence Fontenot experienced another heart attack two decades later. Fontenot was ready to keep fighting, and so were his physicians. 13 weeks later, Dr. Gregoric made an incision in Fontenot's chest along the ...
After several heart attacks and multiple unsuccessful attempts to manage his congestive heart failure, Steve sought a heart transplant team to begin a new journey. The process of heart transplantation can be daunting but the heart surgeons’ and specialists’ display of high competence ...
Venola was so overcome with joy – and shock – at winning that the sweet victory did not sink in immediately. After all, it was only about 17 months after her lifesaving heart transplant. She had suffered from ischemic cardiomyopathy and coronary artery disease - also called coronary h...
During a visit with his cardiologist Larry was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect: aortic stenosis. With this condition, the valve gets very tight and limits blood flow to the entire body. Larry was then referred to Memorial Hermann Heart & Vascular Institute affiliated cardiothoracic a...