JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – It's unique operating room for heart patients.
Baptist Medical Center's new Hybrid Operating Room can immediately convert to handle a full medical team if a patient's condition changes and full-fledged open-heart surgery is suddenly needed.
"I've been doing this for 10 years and have never needed to convert to open," said Dr. Ruby Satpathy, an interventional cardiologist at Baptist Health Center. "But we are always prepared because if we need to convert to open, we need to convert in 2 minutes 30 seconds."
In town on Wednesday to help tout the new technology was national sports reporter Jennifer Hale, who's been haunted by her own heart condition.
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"Leading up to diagnosis, I had strange symptoms," Hale said. "Right before diagnosis, I felt my feet and legs swell up significantly and that's when I said, 'This must be something other than fatigue.'"
At 38 years old, Hale was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy. Her heart was enlarged and was only pumping at about 16%.
She was sent to a heart specialist in New Orleans who gave her medicine to reduce the size of her heart and she was outfitted with a defibrillator for eight months to shock her heart if it were to stop.
"I am so grateful for modern medicine because it turns out that my father, uncle and grandfather all died of this, as well. We thought it was heart attacks, but it was heart disease," Hale said. "It's amazing that in a 20-year span, I can take a couple of pills and I am back to my normal self, whereas it was a death sentence for the rest of my family members."
She's beyond thankful there's treatment for her condition -- the same ailment that killed her father, uncle and grandfather. After her experience, she was impressed touring Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville's Hybrid Operating Room.
"Obviously, it is about saving lives, but to me, the big part of it was the mental battle -- the fact that a patient can get a new heart valve and walk out of here in a few hours," Hale said. "What that does to you mentally, I promise you, it is huge."
Two years after being diagnosed, Hale's heart medicine has worked so well that she was taken off a heart transplant list.
She also spoke Wednesday night at a women's health gathering, encouraging everyone to know their family's health history, so you can catch hidden conditions sooner for a better chance at fixing it.