Gill gives Lexington woman, 23, new heart and new life

Growing up, Adrianne Rogers was an active athlete, pursuing interests in basketball, football, skateboarding and motocross racing. She was skilled enough to play up on a varsity softball team as a middle-schooler.

But at age 13, she began to experience an inexplicable decline in performance and endurance. She chalked it up to "being out of shape" and tried harder. But her decline persisted. At Rogers' annual well visit two years later, her pediatrician heard a heart murmur. Rogers was referred to a cardiologist, and after an EKG, and echocardiogram and a heart catheterization, she received a one-in-a-million diagnosis: restrictive cardiomyopathy.

Restrictive cardiomyopathy occurs when the walls of the lower chambers of the heart become rigid, making it harder for them to pump blood out to the body properly. While many cases are mild, some are severe enough to cause heart failure – a sometimes-fatal condition resolved only by a heart transplant. Restrictive cardiomyopathy is usually diagnosed in the elderly. It's an extremely rare diagnosis in teens.

Rogers was benched from sports of any kind. Diuretics and blood pressure medicine helped control her condition. But by the time she was a senior at UK, she began having episodes of atrial fibrillation. Her atria – the upper chambers of the heart – were struggling to keep a normal rhythm.

Atrial fibrillation, or Afib, is associated with higher risks of stroke and heart failure, so Rogers went to see Dr. Andrew Leventhal, director of the Kentucky Adult Congenital Heart Program at the UK Gill Heart & Vascular Institute. Leventhal is among an elite group of cardiologists with special training to recognize and treat the issues that affect adults with congenital heart defects.

Rogers instantly bonded with Leventhal.

"I just fell in love with him," Rogers said. "It was clear that he knew a lot about my condition and was committed to keeping a close eye on me."

In need of a transplant

People like Rogers who are diagnosed with heart defects as children face unique challenges as they become adults, Leventhal says.

"It wasn't that long ago that children with heart defects didn't survive to adulthood," he explained. "Technical advances in cardiac surgery have improved outcomes dramatically, but that presents a new issue: Patients who reach adulthood have outgrown their pediatric cardiologists and the facilities that provide treatment – typically children's hospitals. Simply transitioning to an adult cardiologist isn't the best fit either, since their heart problems can be very different from cardiac conditions that begin during adulthood."

Leventhal followed Rogers carefully as she slipped in and out of Afib three times in a year. Medications and cardioversions (a procedure that attempts to shock the heart into a normal rhythm) weren’t working. Her cardiac index — a measure of how much blood her heart was pumping — was low. Rogers wouldn't survive long without a heart transplant.

Leventhal made a call to Dr. Maya Guglin of UK HealthCare’s Heart Transplant Program, who immediately began the process to put Rogers on the priority wait list. She received her new heart about a month later, and on Dec. 28, 2016, she left the hospital with a new lease on life.

Rogers describes waking up after surgery to a strange feeling.

"I was laying there and felt something weird and a little uncomfortable on my back," she says. She then realized that the sensation she was feeling was that of a healthy, beating heart.

"It had been so long since I'd felt a real heartbeat that I didn't even recognize it at first."

Paying it forward

While Rogers was hospitalized and waiting for her new heart, she was visited by a young man who'd recently had a heart transplant of his own.

"He really calmed my nerves and made me realize this was doable," she says.

So, when Dennis asked Rogers if she would talk to another transplant candidate, she was more than willing to pay it forward.

"I can give them an experience to relate to, and they see that a transplant isn't so scary," she said.

Leventhal wants young people diagnosed with heart defects to understand the importance of regular follow-up care with a cardiologist trained to work with these unique conditions.

"Even if you've been told you're cured, even if you're feeling good, you need to have a relationship with a cardiologist who specializes in treating adult patients with congenital heart defects," he said. "Adrianne's story is the perfect example of someone who was careful about managing her defect but still became critically ill. Thankfully, she was wise to keep up with her care and seek help when she didn't feel well. That was a huge factor in this success story."

See more of Adrianne's story