Patient Stories

Dr. Mark Ginsburg, director of Columbia’s Diaphragm Center and the world’s leading authority on minimally-invasive procedures to restore the function of the phrenic nerve, was able to tighten Charlie’s diaphragm, leaving his lungs more room to expand.
Thirty-year old Orla Tinsley had already revolutionized care for patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) in Ireland when she came to NYP/Columbia for a lung transplant in 2017.
Since I was a child, I remember my parents bringing me to a series of doctors to try and find out the cause of my relentless abdominal pain. Unfortunately, no doctor could accurately identify the condition that was causing my symptoms, thus prescribing me wrong and unnecessary medications. This situation went on for years.
Joe benefits from next generation LVAD and heart transplant
Haydee Yanesa came to NYP/Columbia from the Philippines after suffering for many years with chronic liver disease. Following the birth of her daughter in 2007, Haydee was told that she had hepatitis B. “My blood work was normal,” Haydee says, “so I didn’t pay any attention to it.”
On Super Bowl Sunday, 2013, Beverly Farran, a teacher who runs an afterschool program, had a dreadful cold. When her symptoms worsened, she went to a hospital for a chest x-ray. Because Beverly’s stomach hurt, the hospital took another picture and found a tumor on her liver. “I lost confidence in my local doctors,” Beverly says. “I wondered, How could they miss something this serious?”
In April 2007, after symptoms of dark urine and a rash, Lucien Zito visited a surgeon who determined his symptoms were caused by a mass on his pancreas. This information was devastating to hear but even more devastating was the doctor’s conclusion that his cancer was inoperable. Thoughts of confusion and hopelessness overtook the Zito family.
My story begins on October 9th, 2016. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, I had lived 29 years without any significant medical history besides a bout of childhood asthma.
NYP/Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital is the largest referral center in New York for infants with congenital heart disease, with the highest survival rate for pediatric heart surgery in the state and one of the highest in the nation. So that’s where Rob Foley and Lauren Kifer-Foley came when their 20-week pre-natal sonogram and further tests revealed their baby would be born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS).