Faces of adult congenital heart disease: Marathoner, mom, researcher

Most people with congenital heart disease (CHD) are diagnosed at birth. But Dr. Kornelia “Nelly” Polyak found out about her condition in medical school. After a lesson on cardiology, the teacher demonstrated an EKG on Nelly. Everyone was surprised by the abnormal result, and an echocardiogram confirmed that Nelly had CHD. “I didn’t believe it at first. I was active, otherwise healthy, and felt fine — how could I have a heart problem,” says Nelly, who modestly describes herself as “more active than most people.” Soon she learned she had an atrioventricular canal defect (ASVD), a hole in her heart that disrupted proper blood flow and also affected her mitral valve. “It was pretty big,” says Nelly, “and I was warned my heart could fail before my 40th birthday if I didn’t have surgery.” She decided to have the surgery to close the ASVD. Six months later, Nelly left her home country of Hungary to enroll in graduate school at Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences – Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. After that she went on to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, for post-doctorate training in cancer genetics, and then accepted a faculty position at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. She also started seeing Dr. Michael Landzberg in the Boston Adult Congenital Heart Program (BACH), a joint collaboration between Boston Children’s and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. When Nelly became pregnant, she wa...
Source: Thrive, Children's Hospital Boston - Category: Pediatrics Authors: Tags: Our Patients’ Stories Adult Congenital Heart Program at Boston Children’s congenital heart disease Dr. Michael Landzberg Dr. Sitaram Emani Source Type: news