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of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As fast as the blood flows into the right atrium of President Spencer W. Kimball’s stopped heart, a tube pumps it out of his body and into a machine next to the operating table. Dr. Russell M. Nelson peers down into the chest cavity. The room smells of cauterized blood vessels and arteries. Not long ago, this was unthinkable. Operating on a live heart was a medical sin when he entered medical school. The blood streaming into the machine had been returning to President Kimball’s heart after a trip through his body. The machine takes over for the heart and lungs. An oxygenator strips out carbon dioxide and delivers oxygen. Then the heart-lung machine returns the blood to the aorta, which sends it coursing to his brain, fingers and toes. ....
Deseret News Share this story Shutterstock In 2003, Sheana Nelson decided to go on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her destination was Mongolia, so the then-Washington State resident traveled to the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah to learn Mongolian before she departed for central Asia. She saw University of Utah Health cardiologist John Ryan, M.D. A nurse on Ryan’s team listened to her heart and Sheana learned she had, she says, “a really good example of a heart murmur.” Ryan let her hear it. “The best way to describe it is like a baby on ultrasound,” she recalls. “My heart had more of a whooshing sound to it than a normal, solid thud-thud.” ....