Heather Burich remembers that Thursday in December 2022 like it was yesterday. She was 23 weeks pregnant and didn’t understand why she was struggling to breathe. The symptoms started shortly after she became pregnant at 35, and she chalked it up to normal discomfort. But her condition was serious enough that she sought an echocardiogram at Vanderbilt Health to make sure nothing was wrong with her heart.
She had just driven from her appointment at The Vanderbilt Clinic in Nashville back to her home in Clarksville, Tennessee when she got a call from Kathryn Lindley, MD, director of the Vanderbilt Women’s Heart Center, with news that her ECHO results were alarming.
“We haven’t met,” Burich recalls Lindley saying. “We’re supposed to have an appointment on Tuesday, but I don’t know how you’re managing. You need to come in, and when you do come, we’re going to have to make a plan to get you surgery.”
