I am so thankful that I had parents who advocated for me from the first hour. They made sure I went to every follow-up appointment, took my antibiotics one hour before dental care, ate well, exercised, etc. And once I became an adult, it was my turn to either continue taking care of myself or not. I chose to do the former ..read more

When I came back from my interview for a position as an adult congenital heart disease (ACHD) doctor with the Yale Adult Congenital Heart Program, I could hardly contain my excitement. I remember telling my husband how excited I was to find a program that had everything: nurse coordinators, advanced practice providers, a social worker (in clinic!), and access to brilliant and innovative physicians on both the pediatric and adult side that shared my passion for taking care of congenital heart patients ..read more

My name is Jessica Vargas Miranda. I was born in Mexico City in 1982 as a healthy baby—according to medical standards at the time—until one day I developed bronchitis that led to severe pneumonia. I was losing weight drastically, so my parents took me to get a second medical opinion. That’s when I was diagnosed with congenital heart disease at the age of 7 months old. At 9 months, I had my first open heart surgery and since then, I have had three open heart surgeries with the last one being in 2013 ..read more

It’s times like this when I wish I had an ACHD team close by. I’m in transition to see an ACHD cardiologist once he comes to Anchorage this spring. It’s unsettling knowing your team is so far away and if, Heaven forbid, something bad happens, you are hours and sometimes hundreds of miles away from a team that knows how to treat you. It worries not only me, but my family too ..read more

As the parent of a CHD warrior, this resonated with me—just as I imagine it might with many of you. that found when subjects were given a 50% chance of receiving a painful electric shock, they were significantly more stressed than those subjects who were given a 100% chance of receiving a painful shock. It is the uncertainty that generates increased levels of stress and anxiety more than the actual problem being addressed ..read more

I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be a nurse. I was around eight years old during my first experience with congenital heart disease (CHD), when my cousin was born with CHD and underwent a couple of surgeries ..read more

Personally, I’ve had an emotional reckoning of sorts ..read more

I had open heart surgery VSD repair in 1976 when I was six years old that left me with the classic scar on my chest, along with a scar in my right groin where they hooked me up to the heart-lung bypass machine ..read more

..read more

..read more