A New York girl who was born with a fatal heart defect is now training with the cardiologist who helped save her life as a child.
Ariana Azeez of Chester, New York, was born with a hole in the wall that separates the two upper chambers of her heart, allowing a dangerous flow of blood to move between the right and left sides.
The condition, which can cause problems such as high blood pressure and even heart failure in some cases, was caught early on by a team of pediatric cardiologists who were able to diagnose and repair the life-threatening defect.
Now, 17-year-old Ms. Azeez, a high school senior, is working alongside Dr. Eric Fethke, hoping to follow his path and save the lives of children like her.
Ms. Azeez, now 17, has spent her summers following the pediatric cardiologist who treated her congenital heart defect for years since she was 11 months old.
Ms. Azeez was born with an atrial septal defect, a relatively common but life-threatening heart defect. The condition caused a gaping hole in her heart that allowed abnormal passage for blood.
Ms Azeez said: “He’s one of my favorite doctors I’ve ever had because something I learned and from a young age was that he’s very interactive and engaging when he’s in the room with you (as a patient)…he loves his job.
In fact, it has blackboards in every room. He draws a diagram of a heart and points out certain parts that need to be fixed and kind of teaches, he gives a little crash course on what’s going on. So for me, when he did that, I found it really interesting and I liked learning about it.’
Her physician-turned-supervisor, Dr. Fethke, is a pediatric cardiologist who specializes in fetal heart conditions and congenital birth defects in his private practice in Middletown, New York.
He has long been a core member of Ms. Azeez’s healthcare team. Although he did not perform the life-saving surgery on her at 11 months of age, he treated her at monthly and then yearly follow-up appointments beginning on her first birthday and continuing until about two years ago.
Just months after being born in the Bronx, Ms. Azeez was being examined by a doctor who became concerned by what she heard through her stethoscope.
The whistling sound she heard, caused by turbulent blood flow through her heart, told her that Ariana had a heart murmur and an irregular heartbeat, known as an arrhythmia.
After running various tests, doctors diagnosed Ms. Azeez with an atrial septal defect (ASD), a birth defect that causes a hole in the wall between the heart’s upper chambers, or atria.
Just months after she was born in the Bronx, Ms Azeez (pictured in the DailyMail.com studio photo) was being examined by a doctor who grew concerned about what she heard through her stethoscope.
The whistling sound she heard, caused by turbulent blood flow through her heart, told her that Ariana had a heart murmur and an irregular heartbeat, known as an arrhythmia.
In a healthy heart, the right and left sides are separated by the atrial septum, which prevents oxygenated and deoxygenated blood from mixing.
D.Deoxygenated blood, or blood that has been deprived of oxygen, flows to the right side of the heart and then through the pulmonary artery, carrying it to the lungs to be reinfused with oxygen.
The oxygenated blood then returns to the left side of the heart through the pulmonary veins. The heart then pumps this blood through the aortic valve into the main artery in the body called the aorta.
The oxygenated blood then flows to organs and tissues throughout the body.
Babies in the womb have an opening between their atria before birth, allowing blood to bypass the lungs before they are fully developed.
This is because oxygenated blood flows from the mother’s placenta into the baby’s body and is pumped by the heart to the rest of the body.
Normally, the hole closes once the baby is born and exposed to oxygen. But in people with ASD, that hole remains in the wall that separates the two upper chambers of the heart, allowing oxygen-rich blood and oxygen-deficient blood to mix.
Although blood continues to flow normally in a person with ASD, some of it is diverted through the hole, allowing extra blood to pass from the left side of the heart to the right.
This means that some of the blood that should carry oxygen to the body’s organs and tissues is not doing so effectively. It can also overwhelm the right side of the heart and lungs.
The condition meant that Ms Azeez was unable to breastfeed and had a feeding tube inserted through her nose for eight months.
While the condition may be benign, in Ms. Azeez’s case, doctors determined they had no choice but to surgically repair her heart defect.
They had planned to operate on her when she was 12 months old and 10 pounds, but decided that at 11 months and just eight pounds, her condition was serious enough that they couldn’t afford to wait.
Ms Azeez said: ‘Mine was very big. It was a large flap, like a hole in the atrial wall. And then they had to seal that because it was causing me to not be able to breastfeed properly and also having trouble breathing.’
During the surgical procedure, doctors temporarily stopped his heart so they could directly access the faulty atrial septum that separates the two atria. The large ‘flap’ of her heart was stitched closed and her heart restarted, restoring blood flow to its normal pattern.
Ariana’s recovery was swift, with just one day in the intensive care unit. But she had to see cardiologists like Dr. Fethke on a monthly basis for much of her life to make sure that surgery had fixed the problem for good.
Now, Ms. Azeez has come full circle, spending a few hours each week during the summers observing Dr. Fethke’s patient consultations and examining diagnostic tests such as echocardiograms, which use sound waves to produce a real-time representation of the heart. .
Years of regular checkups with a team of doctors, including his current boss, sparked his interest in the study of the heart, though his interest in medicine doesn’t end there.
She is also interested in studying psychology and neurology at university in addition to cardiology, with the hope of treating children in the future.
Now, deep in the college application process (her top picks include New York University and Columbia University), Ms. Azeez envisions herself pursuing a medical career specializing in pediatric cardiology, psychology, and neurology or oncology.
She told DailyMail.com: ‘Dr Fethke not only taught me about my condition, he talked about other (conditions) as well.”
So I realized that, okay, this is interesting because it happened inside of me, but there are many other similar conditions with the heart that are also very interesting. And from there, I became very interested in everything that had to do with the heart.’
