MEMPHIS FIT
Pushing Limits and Inspiring Others With a Heart Defect
By Kelsey J. Lawrence Photo by Tindall Stephens
At just nine months old, Ryan Stephens was undergoing heart surgery to correct a defect called tetralogy of Fallot. It’s a rare condition caused by a combination of four heart defects that are present at birth. Now the 35-year-old nurse practitioner is working with kids and adults to show them that such diagnoses should not hold them back. Ryan is an integral member of the Le Bonheur Mid-South Adolescent-Adult Congenital Heart Disease team, which was established to help children living with complex congenital heart disease transition into adulthood and continue receiving the care they need. As a teenager heading off to college, it’s a program Ryan could have benefitted from had it existed at the time. “When I graduated from high school, I saw a cardiologist before I went to college and I didn’t see another one until I was 23 or 24,” he explains. “If I had not been a self starter, I probably wouldn’t have done anything unless I had a symptom or a problem.” Ryan says he’s fortunate that he didn’t require subsequent surgeries after the initial correction he had as a baby, but that’s not the case for most people born with the same condition. “Many people with that diagnosis have multiple surgeries for it,” he says. Ryan still has regular appointments with his own cardiologist, Benjamin Rush Waller III, MD, director of the Adult Congenital Heart Disease Program. Being a patient of the program himself makes Ryan a trusted ally and advocate for other patients enduring the same tests and lifelong heart monitoring. “I know my experience is different than theirs, but it’s not that different,” he says. “I get it when they’re upset. I get it when they’re frustrated. I get it when they’re depressed. I get it when they have to take a medicine they don’t want to take. I get it when they have to come in and take these tests, and I get it when they have to spend $2,000 on an echocardiogram, which is really frustrating. If it helps them at all to see someone who understands, then that’s worth it.” Despite his early diagnosis, Ryan has lived life pushing the limits. He played sports throughout childhood, and it wasn’t until he wanted to join the seventh grade football team that he truly understood he was different. “It was one of those crushing moments as a middle school kid when you’re just trying to fit in and just trying to be like everyone else,” he recalls. “It’s the one thing in Alabama that you’re supposed to do in high school, and they wouldn’t let me.”
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