Dignity Health | Be well | Spring 2018

Melanie Hirdler will never forget last Mother’s Day. “I had a really close call,” she says. Suddenly and without warning, a stroke sent the Douglas City resident slumping to her kitchen floor, unable to speak or move her entire right side. She was rushed to Mercy Medical Center Redding (MMCR), where she benefited from a new treatment that, a year or two earlier, would not have been available locally. It saved her life. “I’m still here, and I’m able to think and love and talk and create and have friendships—all the things we kind of take for granted,” says Melanie, a mother, wife, and tal- ented landscape painter. “And that was very much in jeopardy.” Navigating the brain Over 80 percent of strokes occur when a clot blocks a blood vessel, cutting off the supply of blood to the brain. Every minute the stroke lasts, millions of brain cells die, increas- ing the risk of permanent damage to the brain. There are medications that can help restore blood flow. But they don’t always work if the clot lodges in one of the brain’s larger blood vessels. That’s what happened to Melanie— and why MMCR’s new biplane angiography suite was so crucial to her recovery. The biplane equipment cre- ates real-time images of the brain from two different angles. “It lets us create a nearly 3-D map of the blood vessels so that we can go and do treatments inside the brain,” explains Erek Helseth, MD, a neurointerventional radiologist at MMCR. During the procedure, he uses a miniature tube with a tiny basket at one end to snare the clot, remove it, and restore blood flow to the brain. “Blood vessels inside the brain are very small and twisty and delicate,” Dr. Helseth explains. “To safely and effectively navigate the brain, you really need to see on both planes.” With the biplane equipment, Dr. Helseth can watch the delicate blood vessels on a large video screen while he works. “The strokes we are treating with the biplane are some of the most devastating and disabling,” Dr. Helseth says. “But with this development in the last couple of years, we’re essentially undoing the effects of the worst kinds of stroke.” Saving time and tissue The biplane means MMCR can treat stroke patients like Melanie locally. They don’t have to be transported to Sacramento, which saves valuable time. The less time it takes to treat a stroke, the less likely it is to result in disability or death. “There are a lot of people in the stro of luck’ ‘A Erek Helseth, MD 16