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We first met Zonda Montgomery in 2025 when she celebrated her 100th birthday at Healthpark. “It was just wonderful. I was overwhelmed by it,” she said.
Leading up to the big day, she was having trouble breathing, eating and feeling fatigued.
“The valve became very leaky and her heart started failing,” said Cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. David Cervantes.
“Blood was going backwards in her heart, back into her lungs. And she was developing something called pulmonary edema because her heart wasn't working efficiently,” said Dr. Nabeel Memon, The Medical Director of the Structural Cardiology Program.
The Lee Health Heart Institute team was able to do a minimally invasive procedure called transcatheter edge to edge repair (TEER) to restore Montgomery’s faulty heart valve to normal function.
“There's no incisions on this individual's chest, It's essentially like putting in an I.V. in the groin into a vein in the groin, sending catheters up to the heart, stirring a device on the valve and restoring the valve to its original function by putting a clip on it so it can function back to its normal state,” said Dr. Memon.
More than a year later, Montgomery is still feeling strong and active. When she visited for a follow-up, the team sang her happy birthday to celebrate her 101st. “Just the fact that they would take a few minutes off of their busy lives, a doctor, imagine and his staff all came in here and sang to me! Incredible. I was so honored!” she said.
More than a century behind her and a future still to cherish.
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Lee Health in Fort Myers, FL is the largest network of health care facilities in Southwest Florida and is highly respected for its expertise, innovation and quality of care. For more than 100 years, we’ve been providing our community with personalized preventative health services and primary care to highly specialized care services and robotic assisted surgeries.
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