Chapters Transcript Video She’s 103 and Still Cooking for Her Family Thanks to Life-Saving Heart Surgery In 1921, Maria Teresa Gonzalez came into the world with her arms open for all that it had to offer. She survived the collapse of her country and came to America with her loving family. Nazi in Cuba. In La Provincia de lavana. Vega Maria eventually settled in Miami with her family in Chicago. I paramitacasemeo la calificacion de la valbula. You messia being. You see mi casia mi hermana tamine and firma. Its la mole mucholo el pesos lore fuertes semisimari pechoa keeperta. I'll see Maria came to us uh probably about now. You know, 4 months ago or so, and uh she was hospitalized with acute congestive heart failure. And at that time, she was found to have aortic stenosis during that hospitalization. Aortic stenosis is a buildup of calcium on the aortic valve, which causes the valve to become stiff over time. This buildup reduces the valve's ability to fully open and close, decreasing blood flow to the rest of your body, resulting in shortness of breath and difficulty of mobility. You know, we essentially did her CAT scan evaluation. Which is one of the most important, uh, you know, imaging assessment that we do before performing any sort of intervention in the sever aortic stenosis patient. So, uh, the full form of taver is trans catheter aortic valve replacement. So essentially what it means in the layman term is replacing or implanting the aortic valve uh by the catheter-base approach. Uh, and it's been FDA approved since 2011, and there are, you know, plenty of patients who have received this, uh, uh, treatment. Essentially, the procedure is done through the femoral artery in the groin over that wire, put it in that aortic valve position under the fluoroscopy, the X-ray. System we actually inflate that balloon, blow up the balloon, and as the balloon blows up, the stent opens up. In totality, we've probably done more than 1500 of this procedure. So she was able to walk around and do her daily activities after that procedure. Movie It. Every single night she would pray for uh close people in her life, and, uh, you know she prays for a great grandson and granddaughter, and I'm part of that circle, being part of someone's prayer, you know that's such an amazing reward. Created by
