Key points from today’s guests:

Haley Taylor, pulmonary hypertension patient

• Haley was born with two holes in her heart. As a baby, she underwent her first of four open heart surgeries before the age of 17, along with many other procedures.
• She was later diagnosed with a leaky heart valve, sub aortic stenosis (which is a narrowing below her aortic valve), and pulmonary hypertension known as PH.
• PH causes high blood pressure in the arteries that supply the lungs. It caused Haley to tire easily, have chest pain and lightheadedness, and sometimes she struggled to breathe.
• Doctors at another hospital told her there was nothing they could do for her. Eventually she ended up at The University of Kansas Health System, where they were able to save her life.
• Despite her health challenges, she pursued a career in nursing and is about to become a mom.
• She thanks her medical team and her support structure for helping her throughout her journey.

Dr. Tim Williamson, pulmonologist, The University of Kansas Health System

• Pulmonary hypertension is basically high blood pressure. Anything that causes those high pressures can have a negative impact on the part of the heart that is trying to squeeze against it.
• There are several congenital heart defects that are well known to predispose to pulmonary hypertension.
• What Haley had is something called a complete AV canal defect, which is basically where all four chambers of the heart meet just doesn't form right, and it leads to two holes at the top chambers and the bottom chambers of the heart.
• That can lead to is a lot of extra blood flow going through those holes into the lungs, and that exposes the lung arteries to both high flow and high pressure, and the longer they're exposed to that flow and pressure, the more likely they are to develop pulmonary hypertension over time.
• The good news is, for adults, the majority of patients have a chronic, manageable disease that can be treated and lead to improvement in the quality of life. With treatment, patients can live a really long time.

Dr. J.D. Serfas, interventional cardiologist, The University of Kansas Health System

• In Haley's case, and in many patients with pulmonary hypertension, the ability of the right side of the heart to relax in that way and suck blood back up is impaired, and so you have blood pooling in the legs.
• It causes symptoms -- swelling in the legs, sometimes ulcers or wounds in the legs, pain, and there is a clotting risk associated that, because any time blood pools without moving much, it's predisposed to clot.
• Haley has two mechanical heart valves, so we'll see Haley at a minimum once a year, and any time she needs us.
• Thankfully, here at KU we're fortunate to have a dedicated adult congenital heart disease center, which is exactly what Haley needs.

Dr. Shawn Sood, pediatric critical care medicine, The University of Kansas Health System

• Patients that come to the pediatric ICU with pulmonary hypertension can have a PH crisis, and they're often very sick, and so we have to work hard as a health system in our pediatric ICU to stabilize these patients.
• They can have low blood pressure, they can be blue to the face, and so it's all hands on deck to relieve that right sided pressure of the heart, to get it to relax, to make sure we can get blood flow to the lungs.
• For pediatric cases, I'd say more than 60 percent are because of congenital heart disease.
• My big message is resiliency. If I could describe Haley with one adjective, it'd be just how resilient she is. And so to see how resilient a patient can be. To go through so many surgeries, go through so many medications, yet live such a fulfilling and thriving life, just fulfills my heart to see.

Friday, Oct. 25 at 8 a.m. is the next Morning Medical Update. Doctors replace fear with facts with this Halloween program on how to stay safe.

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