04/01/2026
"My earliest memories aren’t tied to birthdays or grade levels—they’re tied to waiting rooms. To the soft snap of latex gloves. To the familiar chill of a stethoscope pressed against my chest. While other kids measured time in summers and holidays, I measured it in cardiology appointments and the steady, concerned questions my parents asked: Does your chest feel okay? Does your heart feel funny today?
I wore my history on my body. Scars stretched across my chest and back, long before I knew how to explain why they were there. They told a story I hadn’t yet learned how to read.
I was born with tetralogy of Fallot, a congenital heart defect made up of four separate structural problems—holes, narrowed pathways, valves that never worked quite the way they were meant to. I learned the name early, but not the implications. As a child, the diagnosis itself felt abstract. What mattered more was that my heart was different—and that difference was always going to be part of me.
My parents never missed an appointment. They carried the kind of vigilance that comes from being told your child’s life will begin in an operating room. I carried something else entirely: determination. The more they worried about scraped knees, gym class injuries, or me pushing too hard, the more I pushed anyway. I played volleyball, softball, and soccer. I joined the gymnastics team. I danced tap and ballet. Not because I was reckless—but because I refused to live cautiously by default.
By sixteen, I bristled at the suggestion that I might qualify for a handicap placard. I ignored warning signs at amusement parks that listed heart conditions as a reason not to ride. I knew I had a heart defect. I also knew I wasn’t willing to let it set the boundaries of my life.
That mindset carried me into adulthood. I followed my doctors’ guidance, but I lived alongside my congenital heart disease, not beneath it. I earned a full scholarship to college and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Organizational Leadership. I married at twenty-one—an age some considered too young. But when you grow up understanding how fragile and valuable time can be, you don’t wait to begin living.
At twenty-three, I became a mother. My son was delivered by C-section, and despite the added concerns that can come with pregnancy for women with congenital heart disease, neither of us experienced heart-related complications. With a baby at home, I went back to school, earned my MBA, and continued working full-time. Two more sons followed, both delivered by C-section, both born healthy without heart conditions. I returned to work six weeks after each delivery and have stayed with the same company for two decades—starting quite literally the day I graduated college.
Even while building a career and raising a family, I never forgot the patches placed over holes in my heart years earlier—or the reality that even the best repairs don’t last forever. Every year, I returned to the Cincinnati Children’s Adult Congenital Heart Disease Program. The clinic changed. I moved to the adult side. But the importance of those annual visits never did. They became my safety net—reassurance that any changes would be caught early, before they could upend my life. Knowing my heart was being carefully watched allowed me to plan for the future with confidence instead of fear.
And then, inevitably, time did what time always does. Valves weakened. Repairs aged. I underwent a successful valve replacement at Cincinnati Children’s, a moment that felt less like a setback and more like the next chapter in a story that had started before I could speak. Around that same chapter of my life, I remarried and welcomed two more boys into my home. Today, I’m the proud mother of five sons—all born healthy without heart conditions. My life grew in ways I never could have predicted, but one thing remained constant: care from physicians who understood my heart not just as an organ, but as a history.
Now, I feel a pull to give back to the adult congenital heart disease community. As a parent myself, I finally understand the quiet fear my own parents must have carried. I want families facing a new diagnosis to know what I once needed to hear—that a congenital heart defect does not define the limits of a life. Survival isn’t the finish line. Thriving is possible.
If there’s one thing living with congenital heart disease has taught me, it’s this: find a doctor who understands your condition—and who also sees you. Hearts can be repaired with incredible precision, but lives are sustained by care that recognizes the whole person. Scarred, resilient, and still growing."
