UPCOMING EVENTS!
GOLF ANYONE?
Check out our weekly listings of what’s happening in the RGV!
Tee Time in the RGV features Sunshine Estates Golf!
RECIPE CONNECTION!
Executive Chef Bettina Tolin shares a recipe for your sweet tooth!
Welcome Home See calendar on page 5.
See review on page 30.
VOLUME 1 • ISSUE 18 • February 24, 2016
Try her recipe on page 39.
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WINTER TEXAN
• • • your official connection to the rio grande valley • • •
RGV 1st Responders Learn All about the Heart at the McAllen Heart Hospital Special to Welcome Home RGV
S
moke will be rising in Mercedes this weekend! For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Smokin’ on the Rio barbecue cook-off, come to the Mercedes Livestock Showgrounds Saturday, February 27. and see what all the fuss is about. This year, over 200 cooking teams will come to compete for the Texas Grand Championship award – and that includes the Smashed Potatoes cooking team that yours truly is a member of. As a spectator, you can wander the aisles and sample brisket, chicken, ribs, fajitas, and beans. If you would like to judge a category, there are opportunities for you, as well! There will be live music throughout the day, and I can promise you won’t go away hungry. What I love about Smokin’ on the Rio is that 100 percent of the proceeds are used to purchase student projects at the Rio Grande Valley Livestock Show’s Sale of Champions. Smokin’ on the Rio is passionate about promoting the involvement of students in the agricultural lifestyle, and the primary goal is to insure that all students in the auction get a fair return on their livestock investment. I’ve participated in the cook-off for over 10 years and have proudly served as a volunteer for the last six. Come on out and see me. It’s just five bucks to get in, it’s crazy-good food, and the proceeds go to a good cause. • We’re just connecting the dots,
Kristi
February
11, the RGV 1st Responders met at the McAllen Heart Hospital/ Clinic Conference Room, with a nice luncheon provided by Sweet Temptations, compliments of South Texas Health System. We were greeted by interim McAllen Heart Hospital CEO Lance Ames, who has worked for STHS previously at Edinburg Regional, then McAllen Medical, and now the McAllen Heart Hospital. His Louis Lopez, Medtronics pacemaker technician, delivering his duties also extend to presentation on pacemakers the free-standing ERs located in Weslaco and Mission. catheterization and interventional The Weslaco free-standing ER is medicine, in addition to clinical handling an average of 71 patients patient care. The McAllen Heart per day, while the Mission location Hospital door-to-catheterization time is handling about 40. These free- is 30 minutes or fewer, much faster standing ERs are very good for than many of the other hospitals Winter Texans who do not have an across the country, enabling the established doctor. The ER can patient to save heart muscle with a handle anything that comes up on much better patient outcome. an urgent/emergency, basis as well Jose Galaviz from the OR discussed as walk-ins and outpatient care the advantages of the new Cardiac needing diagnostics or routine blood Hybrid OR and many of the surgical techniques for valve replacements, work. Lance shared logistics of the aneurysm repairs, open heart McAllen Heart Hospital and new surgery, and other advanced surgical technology used in the Cardiac needs for patients, which are less Hybrid Operating Room with invasive, and therefore allow quicker specialized advances used by the recoveries. The LAVD is a new cardiologists and surgeons within the heart bypass pump, which enables hospital. The McAllen Heart Clinic patients to have life-sustaining cardiologists also perform heart blood by pumping the necessary
blood supply throughout the body when their own heart can no longer maintain this duty. The new Congestive Heart Failure Program follows patients from the hospital, working with them to monitor and maintain a healthy balance, preventing frequent hospital stays otherwise needed to correct an imbalance in fluids. Louis Lopez, a Medtronics technician, brought several samples of pacemakers and discussed different styles of devices for different cardiac issues, explaining how the leads are placed into the heart for various conditions and what the pacemaker does in sensing and pacing the heart to ensure the upper and lower chambers of the heart are in sync. Discussion followed pertaining to AFib and how, when the atrium of the heart is out of sync, it can cause blood clots, which is why many people are on blood thinners to prevent heart attacks and strokes. We viewed several sinus rhythms showing the different corrections the pacemaker makes. Nydia shared a portion of the presentation, HEART 1ST RESPONDERS CONTINUED ON PAGE 29 >>
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