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911: He fell from a tree, fell on an objectÖ.
Zach, Ben's Son: My dad, he has something in his back. Itís metal Ö itís something
metal. He canít feel his legs.
Makua: I surf all the big wave tours Ö chasing the biggest, baddest things youíve ever seen.
Dr. Brian Weeks: You can see that light moving in his face. We canít afford to have Makuaís
balance affected, because it could really be life or death in his situation.
Colleen Murphy, RN: Every human being has a story. And we intersect with that story
at some of the most traumatic times in peopleís lives.
Gino: Daniella is here, Anabella is here and Camilla is here.
Dr. Sean Daneshmand: When Gino asked me, "So everything is good, Dr. D, right now? Are
we good for at least two weeks?" Well, itís a day-by-day kind of thing.
Angie: We donít count the weeks here Ö we count the days.
Announcer: These are stories of real people. These are stories of The Sharp Experience.
911: Medical emergency.
Zach: My dad heís laying there ó donít move! ó and he thinks he is close to paralyzed.
He thinks if he moves, heíll probably be paralyzed.
911: Copy that CMT 4, you have (overtalking).
Anna Lou, Ben's Mom: Zach called and said, Grandma, we need you immediately. Dad fell
on a stake and I called 911.
Dana, Surgical Technician: Itís usually the ghost hour, the 10 to 11, the end of our shift
when all the major traumas happen.
911: He fell from a tree, impaled object.
Zach: Heís stabbed.
911: Heís stabbed?
Zach: He has something in his back. Itís metal, it's something metal. He canít feel
his legs and heís bleeding.
911: OK, so itís like a tree?
Manya, RN: It went through his lower back into his pelvis. I am expecting to transfuse
a lot of blood on this patient, Iím expecting there to be a large vessel injury. And that
heís going to bleed out. Iím concerned heís going to bleed out.
911: So do you know what happened?
Zach: We have an avocado tree in our backyard, he was picking them, and thereís a big dip,
he didnít see it. He flipped over and he fell down. Heís laying there.
Dr. Gregory Imler: I canít get to all of the potential injuries; the best place for
us to look is through a front approach. And obviously with 12 inches of metal sticking
out of his back, we couldnít lay him on his back. We had to cut the fence post off at
the skin. So I immediately asked one of the nurses to call engineering.
Drew, Engineering: I wasnít really sure what we were going to be up against. So I tried
to grab a little bit of everything. I was thinking I was just going drop this stuff
off, but they asked me to meet them in the OR. I had no idea that it would be me in that
operating room.
Anna Lou: A thought ran through my mind that possibly he could be paralyzed.
Dana: We had to cut off about a foot of it just to get him onto the bed and the second
foot was still inside of him.
Dr. Imler: Once we turned him over I could feel the other end of the metal object in
his abdomen. We found a way that we thought that it would be safe to pull the metal object
out, put some vice grips on that, literally.
You guys have blood, right?
Operating Room (OR) Team: Yeah. We have blood, yeah.
Dr. Imler: It had gone through part of the pelvis and had lodged in a rather thick area
of bone.
Dana: It took three guys to hold him down while I pulled. Thatís how hard I was pulling.
Launched this thing out, and it went flying across the room and it was just, it was unreal.
Dr. Imler: Weíre going to want a reticulator.
Manya: Prepping to do the exploratory laparotomy to see whatís going on inside his belly.
Dr. Imler: Looking first for you know, major vascular injuries which could be, you know,
very quickly life threatening. It was very close to a couple of the arteries.
OR Team: One unit of blood.
Give me some (surgical) please.
Dr. Imler: A lot of our training is knowing what parts belong where. And when theyíre
not in the right place to figure out how to get them back.
Zach: It was really really dark so you couldnít really see good down here. We only had flashlights,
the rest was literally pitch black so he was about right here.
He was reaching, reaching, reaching ó he fell down right there. The thing that he landed
on was the thing like this, except it was way longer. And it was stuck in his back.
Ben: I landed and I didnít want to panic my kids at first so I started trying to move.
And I couldnít move my torso, I couldnít move anything. So, God, and then I tried to
move my, my feet, my toes. And I couldnít feel my toes and I thought wow this is really,
really, really bad.
Zach: If he was an inch to the left he could have been dead. It was really, really scary.
Yeah.
Ben: Legs work fine. Everything works fine.
Dana: Lucky guy! Incredibly lucky guy.
Dr. Imler: Impalements are not exactly routine for, I donít think, any trauma surgeon.
Dana: To think about having a foot-sized piece of steel inside of you, yeah. And survive
and live to tell about it.
Ben: When I came home after two weeks and saw my boys I just, you know, go up and give
them hugs because I, you know, Iím just very, you know just very glad.
It really strengthened that gratitude that I have for having these wonderful kids in
my life.
Drew: Hereís the work order. And it says assisted in surgery to remove fence post from
patient.
Makua: I surf all the big wave tours, chasing the biggest, baddest things you ever seen
Mother Nature throw at you.
Robert, Strength Coach: Thereís probably only 25 people on the planet that are capable
of riding waves of this magnitude.
His claim to fame for the outside world is that he caught one of the worldís biggest
waves.
Makua: It looked like the whole ocean had stood up all at one time.
Robert: He was 17, and it really just changed his life.
Dr. Brian Weeks: Makua surfs the largest waves in the world, the difference between life
and death is often falling or not falling on a wave. How were the waves when you were
back home?
Makua: Oh we had pipeline like as good as it gets.
Dr. Weeks: Are you serious?
Makua: Yeah. I was supposed to have nasal surgery since I was a kid, I was telling you,
youíll probably find some stuff in there that you probably never seen, you know?
Dr. Weeks: One of Makuaís symptoms has been some instability or just imbalance. This poor
guyís nose needs so much help. Makua, it's amazing to see kind of what your poor nose
has been through, my friend. The procedure Makua is going to have is balloon sinuplasty.
Iím excited to take care of youÖ. Basically open up the nasal and breathing passages and
get him back to functioning normal again. Otherwise Iíll see you at Sharp at 7.
Makua: Right on. Thank you doctor.
Dr. Weeks: Youíre welcome. Have a great day.
Makua: OK.
Dr. Weeks: Bye Ö see you, man.
Robert: He has been, as a young kid, rushed to the hospital several times having episodes
of sinus attacks. There you go, thatís opening up.
Makua: I was in the hospital nine months out of the year, basically breathing out of a
straw my whole life.
Dr. Weeks: Most people that have had trouble as long as Makua, their baseline has shifted.
I mean they really donít remember what it feels like to breathe normally.
Makua: This you know little kid not being able to breathe like Iím going to make it.
Robert: One, two.Ö Iím making sure that he stays in the best shape of his life. Because
his life will be in danger any time heís out there.
Makua: You know you hit, ohhh, and all your air is out, and you still have to stay out
there, you donít have a referee, you donít have a medic. Every other sport in the world,
something goes wrong, someone is there. Oh pause, time-out. Surfing there is no time-out.
Dr. Weeks: This morning what weíre going to do is weíre going to utilize balloon sinuplastyô
technology with minimally invasive techniques. Basic for the patient it means that we donít
have to cut that soft, very sensitive tissue. And because of that we have less bleeding,
less pain, faster recoveries Ö all the good stuff.
Julie, RN: Dr. Weeks is doing the septoplasty bilateral resection, maxillary ostiotoma bilateral
submucosal resection and bilateral nasal endoscopy with sinus lavage. Heís going to fix your
nose.
Dr. Weeks: This is a purely outpatient procedure. He comes in in the morning and before lunch
heíll be home and in his own bed. Heís not going to be debilitated in any way.
Makua: AhaÖ.
Dr. Weeks: Ready to fix you up. All right buddy, well listen weíre going to take good
care of you, I treat everyone like family andÖ.
You know, surgical treatment can cure a problem in a matter of an hour. And really completely
turn somebodyís life around so this is really at the end of the day why Iím a surgeon and
why I do what I do.
Unfortunately Makua has broken his nose probably five times. Been hit in the face with surfboards.
Just a really disrupted airway on both sides. On a scale of 1 to 10, his would be a 9.9.
Instead of using instruments that cut and remove bone, weíre using an instrument that
we place inside of a blocked passage and dilate. It's very similar you know to cardiac angioplasty.
Everything thatís there has a purpose. And if you donít have to remove things that are
made to be there, thatís better for the patient.
House lights off, please.
And the reason the technology works is weíre dealing with very, very thin, paper-thin bone
and the balloon is a very high-pressure device. OK, Iíll take the maxillary balloon. That
balloon when it's inflated it will micro fracture that bone and then it will heal in that open
position. So what Iím going to do now is look down on his cheek, you can see that light
moving in his face, so thereís no doubt that Iím in the right position within his sinus.
OK, so now weíre going to gently inflate the balloon. Beautiful, thatís great. To
me that picture right there is the essence of balloon dilation. Thereís absolutely zero
bleeding, so weíve done one side and weíll go ahead and get ready to treat his other
side. He will be good to go.
To me the art of medicine is connecting with the patient on a personal level. I mean thereís
no question that outcomes are better when patients trust and when patients feel an emotional
connection.
I just want to tell you everything went perfect buddy, OK? Could not have been better.
You got one day and youíll be like a new person tomorrow. OK? All right, my brother.
Physician Assistant: Take a deep breath. Exactly. All right, Iíll see you next week, right?
Makua: Right.
Dr. Weeks: Air is hitting places that it's never hit before.
Makua: It feels like all tingly.
Dr. Weeks: Like you canít believe. Youíre healing beautifully, my friend, absolutely
beautifully.
Makua: Thank you.
Dr. Weeks: No limitations, back in the water, everything, surf today if he wants.
Robert: Perfect.
Dr. Weeks: This is the standard of care now in sinus surgery.
Makua: (Deep breath) Amazing, life changing, doctor Ö life changing. Thank you so much.
Itís a whole new world now.
Bob: Thereís a lot of bicyclists. And I get to know a lot of them because I try to come
over here quite, quite a bit. We can go a little bit slower, right? And then weÖ.
Dr. Raghava Gollapudi: Heís got severe aortic stenosis which is a narrowing of the heart
valve, so blood canít get out of the heart. Blood backs up into the lungs and patients
become short of breath with exertion.
Anita, Bob's Wife: Thereís quite a difference in this man, from what he was before.
Dr. Robert Adamson: We can restore his life, not only lengthen it, but we can restore it
back to health. Heís an avid cyclist, who actually cycled clear across the United States.
Bob: We had to average 85 miles a day. And I was 68 at the time. Theyíre going to replace
my aortic valve. Iíll be able to bike with Manny.
Manny: Actually thatís not going to be too hard.
Bob: You know what? When you ride that bike youíre a kid again. And what better, what
better thing to have when youíre 84 years old.
Anita: Thirty years, and not one fight.
Bob: Maybe we better start one. Weíve traveled the world together. We just, weíre just one,
weíre just simpatico. What more can I say? God gives you what you ask sometimes, and
if you grab it, youíll win.
Anita: Without him, wonít be my life.
Dr. Gollapudi: Weíre going to be replacing his old aortic valve with a new aortic valve
without having to open up the chest. Now, for Bob this is great because heís already
had open-heart surgery once, and this just makes it so much easier for him.
You have any questions for me?
Bob: No, I think weíve talked a lot.
Dr. Gollapudi: (Laughs)
Bob: I didnít want my chest opened again.
Anita: We thought he had no options to make his life better.
Bob: I didnít even know this was available until recently. And it hasnít been availableÖ.
Anita: Brand, brand-new.
Tina Orsag, Cardiovascular Technician: You all right? You ready?
Every patient that walks through our doors, you know, we really take that patient into
our arms and just help them feel comfortable. Them and their family.
Dr. Adamson: If he chose not to have this procedure, the only thing he could look forward
to was progressive shortness of breath. Eventually being bedridden and dying of heart failure.
Anita: Love you. OK, all right, it's going to be OK, it's going to be OK.
Dr. Gollapudi: Todayís procedure in terms of complexity is a 10 out of 10. Itís the
most complex procedure that I do. Itís extremely high risk. We have 16 people in the room,
6 doctors, 4 different specialties, all working together as a team to make sure we have a
great outcome for Bob.
Dr. Adamson: An 80-year-old enjoys waking up tomorrow just as much as a 10-year-old.
Tomorrow is all we all have.
Dr. Gollapudi: We take this new valve, and we place it on a balloon, we crimp down so
we can get to the patientís arteries in his groin.
Dr. Adamson: Make a little incision right here.
OR Team: Pigtail going in.
Dr. Gollapudi: What I do, as an interventional cardiologist, is I implant the valve itself.
OR Team: Balloonís going in. And inject please. Going up.
Dr. Gollapudi: That is the patientís new aortic valve.
Tina: Every patient is important. Just knowing what their lifestyle was like before, what
they hope to achieve by getting this procedure, it really hits home for me. So when we deployed
that stent I was internally cheering.
OR Team: Weíll just take a quick pressure measurementÖ.
Dr. Gollapudi: Patients are able to go home in two to three days and they do as well as
they would have with traditional open-heart surgery. Thatís the best thing. Letís go
talk to the family.
Hello! How are you doing?
Anita: Smiling Ö youíre smiling.
Dr. Gollapudi: Everything went great.
Anita: Itís OK?
Dr. Gollapudi: He did really, really well.
Patients are able to go back to biking or go back to walking normally. They can try
to live for that next birthday or that next anniversary.
Tina: I was thinking about you the whole time I was in there.
Anita: Oh, thank you.
Tina: No problem. He did well.
Anita: Now I can cry. Iím just so happy.
Tina: Just the worry she must have felt every morning. That you know, you want your husband
there when you wake up, your best friend, and so now she got him back. So Iím happy
for Anita.
Bob and Anita: (Inaudible)
Ellie Matthews, RN: If he would have had open-heart surgery he would have been in the surgical
intensive care unit for days on end. Lots of rehabilitation afterward so this is remarkable.
Eleven times around is a mile.
Bob: I might take off here.
Anita: It will be wonderful to see him coming around the corner.
Bob: All I had to do was step on the pedal. (Laugh) Back in the saddle again. How lucky
can you get? This new procedure comes along just when I, I need it. I donít think I would
have finished the year.
Anita: You look so good. Youíre just so fast, you look so good.
Bob: Baby, I dropped them off.
My hope is that weíll soon be able to hit the road and get a few little trips in.
Anita: I donít think it's going to be too long the way heís going. Heís ready to go.
Bob: Iím back!
Anita: Love you, honey.
Bob: Great life.
Anita: Great life. And now we have more of it.
Bob: Now we have more of it.
Claudia: Mommy has breast cancer. You think about a lot of things. I think, mostly for
me, I mean, at least give me a few more years to finish raising my son.
Pat Nemeth, Architect: We asked every subcontractor, "How many of you had had a family member have
cancer?" And up the hands go. "Did you feel hopeless about that?" And up the hands go.
"Would you like to be part of healing cancer patients?" And up every hand in the room goes.
Claudia: Everyone has cancer. Like everyone. Iím going through it physically, but my mom,
my aunts, my cousins, my brothers, they all feel my pain.
Pat: This project was thought of through the eye of a cancer patient.
Claudia: You donít know if youíre going to go through another holiday with your families.
You donít know if youíre going to be there for your sonís graduation, when he gets marriedÖ.
Pat: I want the spaces we build to take the fear out of healing. Wow, wow, unbelievable.
Jonathan Clowes, Artist: We would like folks that are suffering to have some hope, to raise
their spirits. Even medically they have found that taking care of the aesthetic or spiritual
side of a person is every bit as important as the physical side of a person.
Pat: Iím absolutely part of the process of healing. This is where my heart belongs.
Radiation Technologist: You ready?
Claudia: Yes. Today, Iím starting my radiation for six and a half weeks. Iím not fearful;
I know that the treatment I am getting is going to work. I feel confident.
Pat: You lie next to a machine that is behind you, to serve you, not to intimidate you.
If you have a cancerous tumor, these are the rooms you want to be in.
Dr. Phillip Zentner: The level of accuracy on this system is extremely accurate, itís
submillimeter accuracy. We can see at a whole different level exactly what weíre doing.
Claudia: You have such a storm inside your mind. When you walk into a place that was
built for you in mind, I think thatís reassuring. Itís a healing, from the moment that you
walk in, and you feel that. You know that youíre in the right place.
Dr. Marilyn Ortuno Norton: If you feel loved, if you feel comfort, if you feel like thereís
an entire team thatís behind you, thatís helping you with your new cancer diagnosis,
that in itself, itís part of healing.
Claudia: I see the future, itís not so gray anymore. Thereís always hope.
Angie: (Starts singing German lullaby) Well I usually sing to all of my kids including
my boys, but it's in German. It's like a Christmasy, fall tradition. (Continues singing lullaby)
I would wake up in the middle of night and just kind of shake him and say, Baby, three?
I mean really, three? And he would look at me and go, Yeah, Baby, three.
Gino, Angie's Husband: The one thatís by itself is, is it Camilla (Angie laughs) or
Daniella?
Angie: Daniella.
Gino: Daniella is by herself.
Angie: So sheís fraternal.
Gino: Yeah, but I have no clue where she is.
Angie: Baby!
Gino: Like, if I point Ö I forgot, donít they move? OK, so Daniella is here. Right?
Angie: Mm-hmm.
Gino: Anabella is here and Camilla is here.
Angie: There you go, good job for you.
Gino: I kinda guessed but I got it.
Angie: I went to a routine checkup with my doctor.
Dr. Sean Daneshmand: Unfortunately at 26 Ω weeks all of a sudden there was a fluid discrepancy.
Angie: We saw that the liquid for Baby B was too low and for C was a little high.
Dr. Daneshmand: So that was time to say, Angie, we belong in the hospital now.
Angie: And I said, Wait, right now, right now? And he said, Yeah, right now, right now.
Dr. Daneshmand: Angie spends weeks here. It's not easy; sheís got two kids at home. Sheís
got a husband at home; sheís got a life at home. But she does everything to make sure
that these three babies do well. Thatís powerful.
Angie: I was admitted when I was 27 weeks. And tomorrow Iíll be 30 weeks.
Gino: The other day one of the nurses called Angie and I heard it through the speakerphone.
"Are you home?" It sounded funny, but it is home.
Toni Hicks, RN: Theyíre taken away from everything thatís normal. So by telling them, You know,
I understand that this is really hard for you. Thatís huge for our patients.
Angie: This is our date night that we never get at home.
Karen Anderson, Social Work Supervisor: Good morning. Ready for your tour? Our goal is
for you to see a little bit what the NICU looks like. Because it's pretty likely that
triplets are going to end up there.
Toni: The risk of having a premature baby is that their lungs are not completely developed.
They could have brain bleeds.
Angie: You hear a lot of stories, um, you know of triplets who donít make it or especially
the identical twins. The body absorbs one of them.
Karen: Now a baby like this, even though heís in the isolette, can be taken out and held
by the parents. We do whatís called kangaroo care.
Angie: I didnít see it as a sad place, I saw it as a, a way of empowering me.
Dr. Daneshmand: Right now our goal is, all right, 32 weeks, 34 weeks, after 34 weeks
it's icing on the cake.
Denise Frank, RN: I have four children of my own and I try to put myself in that bed
and remember, you know, what was most important to me.
Dr. Daneshmand: With Angieís pregnancy, two of the babies are sharing one placenta. So
when that happens thereís a higher chance of why the baby is not growing very well.
Gino: Does it give you a weight?
Our cutie pieís weight is 3 pounds 2 ounces. The only one thatís, you know, measuring
probably just a little bit tinier is actually B.
Angie: B.
Dr. Daneshmand: How cute is that?
Angie: Who does she look like?
Dr. Daneshmand: She looks like Gino.
Angie: Gino? Come on.
Dr. Daneshmand: When Gino asked me, "So everything is good Dr. D., right now? Are we good for
at least two weeks?" Well it's a day-by-day kind of a thing.
Angie: Anything can happen between now and my due date. We could have contractions that
we canít control. We may do a emergency C-section. For us, we donít count the weeks here, we
count the days.
Iím four centimeters dilated already. So it's timeÖ.
Nurse: We ended up checking her *** tonight and she was pretty dilated so thereís kind
of no time but now.
Congratulations.
Gino: Three little stars will be born tonight.
Angie: I have some hard work ahead of me now.
Dr. Daneshmand: Angieís babies are going to be born via Cesarean section because of
safety concerns for the babies. Angie, cutie pie....
Angie: Hi.
Dr. Daneshmand: How are you, my darling?
Angie: I feel good.
Dr. Daneshmand: Youíre amazing.
Angie: As soon as theyíre born, you know I almost feel like it's a dream. So I just
want to touch them or give them a kiss and make sure that theyíre OK.
Dr. Daneshmand: Each of the babies is going to have their own advanced life support team.
OK, Gino.
(Baby cries, delivery room sounds)
Dr. Daneshmand: Hi, angel, my God. So cute, you guys.
As soon as Angieís babies are delivered, theyíre passed through a window. Thereís
a room adjacent to the operating room where the babies are assessed, helped with breathing,
stabilized and then transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit.
This is our angel. (Laugh) Oh my goodness, hi booboo, hi pumpkin.
(Delivery room activity)
Nurses: Stats of 92. Heart rate 137 Ö 79 Ö heart rate 150 Ö heart rate is 146 Ö
my temp is 37Ö.
Angie: But I didnít see them.
Gino: But you will soon.
(Delivery room sounds, overtalking)
Nurse: Yeah, weíre at about 55 percent.
Neonatologist: Theyíre on C-Pap right now. They are needing some pressure to open up
their lungs. Tonight is a big night for us.
Angie: They look big, how did they fit in there? Are you sure thereís three?
Alina Harper, RN: You know, I really empathize with the parents that have to have their babies
and then be separated from them.
Dr. Daneshmand: We have to remember these babies are still small. And they still are
predisposed to having other complications. Then again, long-term morbidities, but so
far weíre excited that everything turned out very well.
Alina: I love to see the initial contact between mommy and baby. I always look for that, that
moment thatís just theirs that I get to be a part of.
Angie: It feels so right. I was only a few hours apart from them and I already missed
them. So it feels good to be reunited.
Nurse: Thereís Daddy now.
Gino: This is Anabella. Hi, Anabella. Look at that, sheís opening her eyes, listening
to me. Beautiful, beautiful feeling.
Angie: It's truly a dream come true to have them come into my life.
Shhh Ö shhh.
Bob: Letís go, guys! Move íem out.
Colleen: With all of us, thereís an overwhelming spirit of kindness and caring. And what weíre
really all about is love. We love what weíre doing, we love who weíre doing it for, and
we all love why weíre doing it.
Angie: Weíre going home. Itís official. Weíre a family of seven.
Gino: This is your new house.
Dr. Weeks: The day you live for, man. Every day is a blessing.
Dr. Gollapudi: Life is living. We want our patients to be happy, we want them to live
better today.
Bob: Itís better to wear out than to rust out.
(Anita laughs)
Manya: Life is memories, and experiences and joy. And thatís what weíre trying to save.
Ben: Officially day one of our road trip.
Claudia: Life is people who love you and the people that you love back. Thatís life. Thatís
living.
Colleen: It gives me such pride to know that Iím part of this team thatís doing this,
thatís making our world a better place, making our community a better place Ö and really
helping people have hope and dreams and life.
Announcer: The Sharp Experience begins when you choose an affiliated physician at 1-800-82-SHARP
or www.sharp.com.