It was a typical day for Ana Gonzalez, 29, when she sat down to enjoy fish tacos.

But things changed quickly.

Ana, a pre-kindergarten teacher and full-time student, began experiencing an anaphylactic reaction.

She went to a hospital in Douglas, near her home in Mexico, to get treatment for an allergic reaction, but her health continued to deteriorate. The hospital staff had her transferred to Tucson Medical Center for further treatment.

“She’s 29 with no cardiac history. She was short of breath and hypertensive,” said Dr. Nader Makki, interventional cardiologist at TMC. “She wasn’t responding to steroids. At that point, we did an echocardiogram and it showed both the right and left side were very weak. It was only pumping at 10% capacity. That’s when I got involved.”

Dr. Makki worked closely with cardiothoracic and vascular surgeons and the Cath Lab team to insert two Impella heart pumps to allow Gonzalez’s weak heart to rest and recover.

The Impella heart pump provides minimally-invasive, temporary support to help the pumping function of the heart, allowing it to rest and potentially recover.

During and after the procedure, Ana’s mother kept in regular contact with the hospital to check on her daughter. She said the doctors, nurses, patient care technicians and her daughter’s entire care team kept the family informed and did everything possible to care for Ana. She found comfort in Dr. Makki’s words, “We’re gonna be positive optimistic.”

“That’s all I wanted to hear,” she recalled.

The family wasn’t allowed to come into the hospital due to COVID-19 concerns, but were at Ana’s window every day while she was recovering in the Intensive Care Unit.

“She had a lot of connections,” Ana’s mother said. “It was awful to see her like that, but I had to stand up and say ‘she’s gonna make it.’ Once a day Dr. Makki would call and tell us what was going on and I’d ask again, ‘Dr. Makki is she gonna make it’ and he’d say ‘we’re gonna be positive optimistic.’”

While on Impella support, physicians diagnosed Ana with viral myocarditis, heart inflammation caused by a viral infection. After three days of support and antibiotics, physicians removed one of the pumps. Two days later, Gonzalez’s heart made a full recovery and physicians removed the second pump. After nearly two weeks in Cardiac Rehab, Ana returned home.

She is now back in school and will be going back to work soon.

TMC recently hosted a virtual heart recovery reunion to honor Ana and to introduce her to her care team and staff from Abiomed, makers of the Impella pumps, via Zoom. Dr. Makki gave special acknowledgement to the staff from the Cath Lab, ICU, and vascular and cardiothoracic surgery, and had them introduce themselves to Ana.

“The teamwork and collaboration was incredible,” Dr. Makki said. “No time was wasted.”

There were happy tears and smiles all around as each member of Ana’s care team shared their experiences caring for her.

“I want to say thank you to everyone for caring for me and helping me stay alive,” Ana said. “I especially thank you for helping my family cope through all of this. You are all famous at our house. There are no words to describe how grateful we are.”