explore home        episodes        media        4-1-1        schedule        banners        more        contact

Dream a Little Dream of Me 3 Here Comes the Flood 4 Brave New World 5 There's No 'I' in Team 6 Life During Wartime 7 Rise Up 8 These Ties That Bind 9 In the Midnight Hour 10 All By Myself 11 Wish You Were Here 12 Sympathy for the Devil 13 Stairway to Heaven 14 Beat Your Heart Out 15 Before and After 16 An Honest Mistake 17 I Will Follow You Into the Dark 18 Stand By Me 19 Elevator Love Letter 20 Sweet Surrender 21 No Good at Saying Sorry 22 Beautiful Day 23 Here's to Future Days

main - blog - discuss» - music - pix - promo - quotes - reaction - recap - shop» - trivia

thanks to

ABC.com


web tracker

Michael Norris has been Dr. Hahn's patient a long, long time. He has a congenital heart condition, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy that makes him a candidate to receive a heart transplant. In fact, he's been near the top of the heart transplant list since Season 2 of Grey's Anatomy. The heart Denny received before he died would have been Mike's heart if the machine that was pumping Denny's heart (the LVAD) had not mysteriously failed. Now, Mike Norris has yet to receive a match. Time is running out. His heart is too weak to withstand open-heart surgery, if Dr. Hahn does nothing, Mike won't live long enough to get a new one. Lucky for Mike, Erica knows just the thing to do, a cutting edge procedure called an alcohol septal ablation.

During alcohol ablation Erica will inject portions of Mike's heart with 100% absolute alcohol, a substance that is lethal to heart cells. Once the cells die, they shrink. As the heart muscle expires, the thickened muscle becomes thinner scar tissue. Mike's blood will be able to flow more freely, his heart will pump more efficiently and his lungs will be able to receive more oxygen. In short, his quality of life will greatly improve.

There are four stages to this procedure. First, Erica threads a tiny temporary pacemaker into Mike's heart. If the procedure goes well, they'll take it out the next day, but until then, it will ensure that Mike's heart beats rhythmically. Secondly, Erica injects a contrast die into the vessels. This illuminates them in x-rays and allows Erica to see exactly where she will inject the alcohol. Then, Dr. Hahn inserts a balloon-tipped catheter into a branch of the targeted artery. When inflated, it blocks off the blood flow and limits the exposure of the alcohol so that it can safely be injected. As, the alcohol is injected into the heart, Erica is causing a heart attach. Though Mike is sedated and has sufficient amounts of pain medication, he feels discomfort during the procedure. Finally, Erica performs another angiogram to check her work. It takes two tries and an appearance from Denny, but Mike is better off for having come to Seattle Grace.