# @ucsfchildrens on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DNR2a2mxMZS
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/37670214-ucsfchildrens-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/f9163e8d18.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-08-13T02:45:29.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** UCSF Benioff Children’s (@ucsfchildrens) — https://gondola.cc/ucsfchildrens

## Caption

Martha is doing great and enjoying her life more than 60 years after #heartsurgery at our hospital — please send her your best wishes! 

In 1962, Martha came to our #Parnassus hospital at age 5 for a seven-hour heart catheterization procedure to treat a congenital heart disease called a ventricular septal defect (a hole in the wall of her heart). As a baby and young child, she also struggled with pulmonary hypertension—high blood pressure in the arteries of the lungs and heart—as a result of the defect. Her surgeon was the late Dr. Benson Roe, a pioneer of open-heart surgery and the first doctor to perform a heart transplant in #SanFrancisco. 

While recovering in the hospital, Martha made friends with two other girls. “We played games, had lots of visitors, and I had my doll, Chatty Cathy,” she recalls. “My mom was also there every day.” 

Martha returned for a second and final catheterization two years later. Her cardiologist, the late Dr. Ellen Simpson, made such an impression on her that they reconnected years later and remained in contact until Dr. Simpson's death at 93 years old. 

In the decades since her surgeries, Martha has lived a full and healthy life! She worked as a floral designer for 27 years and has a lifelong love of painting. “I’ve always done artwork,” she says. “At #UCSF, what saved me was the craft room!”
#CHD #chdwarrior #vsd

## Stats

- **Views:** 0
- **Likes:** 216
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- **Comments:** 13

## Tags

ucsf, heartsurgery, parnassus, chd, sanfrancisco, chdwarrior, vsd

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