By Daphne Sashin
Julie Mizrahi at the Grand Canyon in September
By the time Julie Mizrahi was seen by Steven Kawut, MD, MS, director of Penn’s Pulmonary Hypertension/Pulmonary Vascular Disease Program, she had fainted all over the world — at the Great Wall of China, at the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, and the Old City in Jerusalem. The corporate auditor from Delaware had been experiencing headaches, swelling in her legs, and frequent fainting spells for years, puzzling her local doctors, but was determined not to let her mysterious illness get in the way of her very active life.
But by the time she was in her early 30s, Mizrahi’s health deteriorated to the point where the slightest exertion caused her to faint. After a stay at PPMC in 2018, Mizrahi was diagnosed with severe pulmonary hypertension (PH), a rare and life-threatening disorder characterized by high blood pressure in the arteries of the lungs. While lung transplant is the only cure, an intravenous medication, delivered continuously from a pump on Mizrahi’s waist through a tube in her chest, supports her heart and lungs in the meantime.
As soon as she learned how to mix her medication and care for her catheter and infusion pump, Mizrahi was ready to get back to traveling. Last fall, while on pump therapy, Mizrahi hiked through six national parks in Utah and Arizona.
“Being able to move this much is freedom at its fullest,” said Mizrahi, now 42. “So much so, I forget at times that I have lung disease."
Nurse Practitioner Christine Archer-Chicko, MSN, CRNP-BC, who sees PH patients at PPMC and in the outpatient clinic at Penn Medicine University City, said Mizrahi’s story is a moving reminder for Presby nurses and physicians who often only see the patients when they are acutely ill.
“It’s nice to see how our really ill PH patients can live with this disease,” Archer-Chicko said.
“Julie is truly inspiring to us and it is a pleasure to care for her.”
Read a longer version of Julie’s story on the Penn Medicine news blog.