Dr. Liza Morton, a Heart Warrior, is also a psychologist who really understands what it means to live with chronic illness. In this episode, she talks with Anna about a new theory that she feels will revolutionize people's understanding of living with chronic illness, her personal experiences from having open-heart surgery and having medical devices implanted and how those life experiences led to her choice of a career.
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Dr. Liza Morton, a Heart Warrior, is also a psychologist who really understands what it means to live with chronic illness. In this episode, she talks with Anna about a new theory that she feels will revolutionize people's understanding of living with chronic illness, her personal experiences from having open-heart surgery and having medical devices implanted and how those life experiences led to her choice of a career.
Anna's Buzzsprout Affiliate Link
Baby Blue Sound Collective
Social Media Pages:
Apple Podcasts
Facebook
Instagram
MeWe
Twitter
YouTube
Website
Within society we've got such fixed ideas about either being ill or being well and you can't be something in between.
Anna Jaworski:Welcome to Heart to Heart with Anna. I am Anna Jaworski and the host of your program. I am very excited about today's show to feature a special psychologist. Today's show is entitled"An Embodied Understanding of Living with a Congenital Heart Defect." Dr. Liza Morton is a counseling psychologist with a background in research. Liza was born with congenital heart block and an atrial septal defect. She has had countless interventions, most notably starting with her first pacemaker at 11 days of age, open-heart surgery to repair her ASD at age 12 and her 11th pacemaker in 2018. Liza is passionate about improving care and the wider experience of living with a heart condition from birth. Liza's current research interests include using a polyvagal lens to better understand the psychosocial impact of living with a heart condition, the impact of patient clothing, on wellbeing and recovery and using psychologically-informed medical care to prevent medical trauma. Liza works for the Somerville Foundation. She has presented a petition to the Scottish Parliament asking for national healthcare standards and improved care which was issued in January, 2019. She has published her work and research forums and psycho educational materials and co-created the photography exhibition Scarred for Life with two friends. In, the first segment we'll meet Liza and discover a little bit more about her heart condition. The second segment will involve us learning more about her decision to become a researcher specializing in the care of adults with congenital heart defects. And in the last segment, we'll discover more about the work that Liza is doing with the Somerville Foundation. Welcome to Heart to Heart with Anna, Liza!
Dr. Liza Morton:Hi. Thank you so much for inviting me.
Anna Jaworski:We're having an international show here because Liza is from Scotland.
Dr. Liza Morton:Yeah(chuckle).
Anna Jaworski:and I guess that kind of made sense with your bio, where we talked about you presenting to the Scottish Parliament. I think everyone probably got that.
Dr. Liza Morton:Yeah(chuckle).
Anna Jaworski:Well it sounds like you are a real pioneer, Liza being the first person in the world to have a pacemaker at the tender age of 11 days old. That's just remarkable. So it seems like you've been witness to a great change in pacemakers over the decades, especially given the fact that you've had 11 of them. Tell us about how long a pacemaker has lasted for you and why you've needed so many over the years.
Dr. Liza Morton:As you've mentioned, I was teased with my first pacemaker when I was just 11 days old and in 1978 that was pioneering and a first at the time. And for me that first system failed within 24 hours and I was rushed back to theater.
Anna Jaworski:Oh. Wow.
Dr. Liza Morton:So until the age of seven I tried five cardio pacemakers, each vetted by thoracotomy. So through the ribs, straight on the heart and they were all set rate. So my heart rate was fixed and which meant that it's physiologically limiting am so there was no gym or exercise or active play. And then by the time I was 12 I was given my first variable-rate pacemaker, sort of slightly less invasive because that's intravenous and I've had six with those, three in the last seven years. I've only worn out a battery on a pacemaker once and all the rest've malfunctioned usually due to lead failure. I guess that's because I was the youngest and they've evolved and developed with me. Um, unfortunately back in the day, they didn't have specialist equipment to take the leads back out again. So a lot of the hardware has been left inside you and that can cause complications because each time I get a system and they've got to try to create space and there's a lot of kind of intravenous scarring and other complications that can arise. Like I said, over the last seven years, I've had three pacemakers and twice that's involved extracting and replacing leads as well, which has been quite risky surgery and quite complex surgery.
Anna Jaworski:Wow, that sounds so invasive. I mean, it's remarkable that you've had to endure so many pacemakers and yet those devices have undoubtedly saved your life.
Dr. Liza Morton:Well, they have. I just, yeah, I wouldn't be here without them. There's absolutely no doubt about that. But it's, it's been tricky.
Anna Jaworski:Did you start out with the pacemaker in your abdomen since you were so tiny?
Dr. Liza Morton:No, it was on the heart, so they went to the ribs and they set it onto my heart. Like I said, by the age of seven I'd had five of those systems and all of the leads are actually still on my heart because we couldn't take them off. They didn't have the equipment then and now because it's been there so long they wouldn't even try to remove it...
Anna Jaworski:Because it's covered with scar tissue, I'm sure.
Dr. Liza Morton:Yeah.
Anna Jaworski:When you said that it was on the heart, I'm visualizing the leads on the heart, which is not uncommon, but the entire pacemaker on the heart? I think that is rather uncommon, isn't it?
Dr. Liza Morton:I'm not sure. I just know that it was a thoracotomy and it was kind of put them through the ribs because they had to break several ribs on the left.
Anna Jaworski:Sounds so painful.
Dr. Liza Morton:It was. It was really painful. Invasive.
Anna Jaworski:Yes. Very invasive. Wow. Well, I've never heard of an 11 day old baby having such an invasive procedure just for a pacemaker, but like we said, it's not just a pacemaker. It's what's keeping you alive and kept you alive as an infant. Did your mother know when you were born that something was wrong right away?
Dr. Liza Morton:She knew there was something wrong because there was no heartbeat and, but she could feel me moving. And these were in the days before you could do ultrasound scans. She felt me moving. So she obviously knew that I was alive. I was born healthy and pink and very quickly to deteriorated because I'd obviously been lowering my heart rate. My heart rate plummeted. I was moved to Yorkhill Hospital in Glasgow and at four days old put me on an external pacemaker just to see what would happen because I was going to die anyway. By that stage I was in congestive heart failure and as soon as they put me on the external pacemaker, so that was through the groin, I became pink and seem alright. They just thought, well we might as well try this. So, like I said, it was one of the first, they take me to theater. It seemed to work, but then it quickly failed and I had an embolic stroke, and I was paralyzed on the left-hand side and they took me back to theater, replaced the pacemaker and then thankfully I recovered to function and it's really been a bloody ten years' journey since then.
Anna Jaworski:Yes.
Dr. Liza Morton:Like I said, uh, well my life was saved and I was alive and I was limited and that the pacemaker was fixed at a set rate. And in addition to all of the surgeries I had, I was constantly in and out of the hospital because it was all so experimental.
Anna Jaworski:Sure.
Dr. Liza Morton:My physicist used to come out from Glasgow University and he used to teach the cardiologist, and electrophysiologists, how to work the pacemaker. So I can remember there being a great big magnet. And all of these, the, when they did the ECG, it was the rubber bands and the bits of metal that they put on you and wrapped around you. And I can just remember spending hours lying in a bed with a whole team of guys and what ports put my heart rate up and counting holes in the ceiling.
Anna Jaworski:Wow. That is such an unusual childhood. I can't even imagine how that must have made you feel. Like a specimen, kind of have to have so many people just watching you.
:Uh huh, it does.
Anna Jaworski:Did you have to endure bullying at school considering you couldn't take part in physical education? And it sounds like you had a number of physical limitations.
Dr. Liza Morton:I wouldn't say I was bullied. Um, I think congenital heart disease is quite unusual and that you can't see there's any disability and conditions. And I think in some ways that's helpful. And then another reason is not because then you have to decide when an if you will tell people.
Anna Jaworski:Sure.
:There were some things as a child I didn't get invited to so I can remember not being invited to a party because the parents were too scared to have me there. I can remember even from family members being too scared to pick me up. I can remember as a teenager this boy asking me on a date and he wasn't from our school, so he didn't know. And then somebody else told him. So then I quickly just got ditched because somebody had told him I had half a heart, which wasn't even true.
Anna Jaworski:Oh my goodness.
Dr. Liza Morton:So there were these kinds of experiences. I can remember another boy actually at school asking me to date and I said no. So he then almost in revenge, asked me in front of the entire class if my dad had to wake me up in the morning.
Anna Jaworski:Oh my goodness.
Dr. Liza Morton:And I knew that was kind of in revenge, but at the same time I just thought, wow, that's really quite mean. I can also remember a different guy saying to me that he couldn't believe I had a peace maker or heart condition because I was too perfect.
Anna Jaworski:Aw.
Dr. Liza Morton:I think, you know, that kind of stirred up my interest I suppose, in psychology and trying to make sense of all of this because I think that within society we've got such fixed ideas about either being ill or being well and you can't be something in between. I did always have good friends. I think that part of it as well was there wasn't really anybody for me to share my experience with and I think that's an important bit of, of being given. And I would be in the hospital, I would have a major operation and then two or three weeks later I'd be back at school. Like part of it, like I said, it was almost hating it and pretending to be normal so that had to be done
Anna Jaworski:Sure.
Dr. Liza Morton:So I was having quite unusual expediencies, difficult expediencies that just weren't a part of normal childhood, but then going back to normal childhood so that was quite confusing. And in those days there was absolutely no psychological support.
Anna Jaworski:Right.
:And then I would say that I covered up my scars as a teenager. Definitely.
Anna Jaworski:On a daily basis did you cover your scars or was that only something if you were wearing a special dress or going to the beach?
Dr. Liza Morton:Wearing a special dress, or going to the beach and you wouldn't see them if I was in my school uniform or normal clothes. I was quite conscious of them if I was wearing a dress, going out for the evening.
H2HwMichael:"Texas Heart Institute were offering us a mechanical heart and he said,"No, Dad, I've had enough. Give it to someone who's worthy."""My father promised me a golden dress to twirl in. He held my hand and asked me where I wanted to go.""Whatever strife or conflict that we experienced in our long career together was always healed by humor." Heart to Heart with Michael... please join us every Thursday at noon Eastern as we talk with people from around the world who have experienced those most difficult moments.
HomeTonight4eve:Home. Tonight. Forever by the Baby Blue Sound Collective, I think what I love so much about this CD is that some of the songs were inspired by the patients. Many listeners will understand many of the different songs and what they've been inspired by. Our new album will be available on iTunes, Amazon.com, Spotify. I love the fact that the proceeds from this CD are actually going to help those with congenital heart defects. Enjoy the music. Home. Tonight. Forever.
Rejoiner:You are listening to Heart to Heart with Anna. If you have a question or comment that you would like addressed on our show, please send an email to Anna Jaworski at Anna@HearttoHeartwithAnna.com. That's Anna@HearttoHeartwithAnna.com. Now back to Heart to Heart with Anna.
Anna Jaworski:Before the break we were talking with Liza about growing up with congenital heart defects and enduring implantation of pacemakers and open heart surgery. But now I'd like to talk with you Liza, about your decision to become a psychologist. We already touched on this a little bit in the first segment, but let's talk a little bit more about how you having to deal with all of those surgeries and the pacemakers and being under scrutiny with all of these doctors who were actually learning on you, how to be an electrophysiologist, how that might have affected your decision to study psychology.
Dr. Liza Morton:I was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder myself when I was about 14 years old. At that time I was chronically fatigued, but then when I was awake I was hyperventilating and I was having lots of flashbacks about hospital expediencies, nightmares about surgery and being hospitalized and I got that diagnosis. There wasn't any help available. So I just had to learn to manage those symptoms in the same way I've had with the heart condition itself. And I could also remember that as a child looking around the ward and hospital visits and witnessing other children and their families suffering and there was just no psychological support or awareness, you know, I can't criticize our teams at all. They went above and beyond the call of duty. They just, the knowledge wasn't there.
Anna Jaworski:Right, right.
:And I saw things that were happening that seemed needless that added to that. And I think that when you have that lived expedience, you can observe that and realize what things add to that that you maybe wouldn't if you hadn't done. So I decided, I can remember deciding as a child, that when I was old enough that I did want to become a psychologist and that I would then use that training combined with my lived expedience to help others coming through to improve things because I think it's hard enough living with a lifelong life-threatening condition and receiving time getting treatment without also having to struggle to mix in both the emotional and psychological impact.
Anna Jaworski:Absolutely. What you went through was so unusual and it was so invasive. I just keep going back to thinking about them having to put those pacemakers on your heart repeatedly and leaving things in your body. That had to have some kind of effect. No wonder you had nightmares.
Dr. Liza Morton:It is surprising though that I'm kind of really trained as a psychologist when I think about the medical trauma side of things. Yeah, I think it's inevitable and I guess it's now having the understanding that those were abnormal experiences and what I had was a normal emotional response to abnormal expediencies. That's not something I understood at the time.
Anna Jaworski:Sure.
:Cause I was a child, I'd only lived that life.
Anna Jaworski:Right.
:So I felt, you know, why am I having these feelings? Every other kid seems to be fine. I also struggled to understand my embodied experience because we were told in those days they thought the heart was just a pump and they said, well your heart's working, it's pumping blood to your body. But I knew actually it might be, but I still can't keep up with other children. I still vomit when I tried to run up a hill.
Anna Jaworski:Wow.
:And there was a discrepancy between what we were told that I should be able to do and what I could do. And again, that's confusing.
Anna Jaworski:Well, yeah, absolutely. Now do you have any brothers or sisters?
Dr. Liza Morton:I have one brother and he's fine.
Anna Jaworski:So was that also kind of confusing how your brother was able to do things seemingly simply while for you even something like running up a hill was difficult?
Dr. Liza Morton:I think I knew on some level that it must be to do with my heart condition and it was because the leads were quite fragile. I was told not really to do anything too strenuous in case the leads broke or became loose. So from that perspective, the expectation wasn't particularly there. But there were a lot of mixed messages that were given. On one hand they were saying, well don't do this and don't do that. But then on another hand they were saying, you should be fine then you should feel okay. I think on reflection they didn't know. They didn't know. And I think they didn't want to disabled me. They didn't want to stop me from doing things.
Anna Jaworski:Right.
:But at the same time, they also were cautious and anxious about the situation themselves.
Anna Jaworski:Well, especially since within 24 hours there were problems as an infant. It's not like you were running up the hills as an infant. You were just a sick little baby laying in the bed. So yeah, it must have really scared them. And with you being the first, there was no precedent for them to be able to look at anyone else and figure out what to do.
Dr. Liza Morton:And I'd find papers, research papers that they've written up and I'm the youngest in the cohort. And there was a number of children that died, so it was very tenuous, for all of us. We were kind of in it together.
Anna Jaworski:Yeah. Well I was really intrigued by some of the research that I saw you're doing. Let's first talk about what the polyvagal theory is. That seems really interesting.
Dr. Liza Morton:It is, it's hugely fascinating to me because it's the first theory that I have read that I felt explained my life expedience and also the experience I've heard from so many other people living with a heart condition. So just briefly, polyvagal theory was developed by a neuroscientist professor, Stephen Porges, who lives over in the states and basically it offers a way for us to understand how our bodies have evolved to deal with threat. So our bodies have these three modes and they're constantly attuning ourselves to experiment and trying to figure out how safe we are and moving and fluxing between these modes. And when I read about that, I wondered if the heart is central to the vagal system and heart rate variability is a central component of how we move between these modes and how our bodies measure and judge where we should be and keep in that balance, then it seems possible that if the heart is compromised due to a congenital heart problem or being artificially paced or in fact in my situation growing up and my heart was at a fixed rate, then that may impact on how we respond to threat. And if you combine that with other factors that can increase stress such as being separated from parents, medical interventions, surgeries and different aspects of potential medical trauma, then that offers us a more holistic understanding of why members of this population are at higher risk of anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, which we know from the literature. It's something I felt was missing.
Anna Jaworski:Yeah.
Dr. Liza Morton:I have read a lot about increased levels of anxiety and depression in post traumatic stress and understandably there are meany secondary factors and reasons why that would be the case because there are so many psychosocial stressors. But I felt that there was possibly more than that. That is maybe also a physiological reason that was being missed. And I think with that embodied framework for me that just makes so much sense. And so I called Dr. Stephen Porges and amazingly he emailed me back right away and I said, I've been reading about your theory, this is my experience and my heart rate was fixed growing up. And I always had unexplained medical symptoms and I also had been diagnosed with PTSD. I seemed to flip between being very fatigued or being hypervigilant. Does he think this could have a physiological origin, and he just emailed me right back and said,"Absolutely." And we got chatting about it and then he invited me to contribute a book chapter to a book he was writing because although he's a neuroscientist and he's done lots of amazing work. But a lot of the theory that he's done has now been picked up within the field of psychology and in application and it's been used by over 40 psychotherapists. So he was compiling a book with Deb Dana, who's a body psychotherapist in the States, and together the were putting together lots of applications of the theory, amazingly invited me to write one on congenital heart disease and how the theory made sense in terms of that.
BHP Promo:Anna Jaworski has written several books to empower the congenital heart defect or CHD community. These books can be found at Amazon.com or at her website, www.babyheartspress.com. Her best seller is'The Heart of a Mother,' an anthology of stories written by women, for women in the CHD community. Anna's other books,'My Brother Needs an Operation,''The Heart of a Father' and'Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome: A Handbook for Parents' will help you understand that you are not alone. Visit babyheartspress.com to find out more.
HUG Message:Heart to Heart with Anna is a presentation of Hearts Unite the Globe and is part of the HUG Podcast Network. Hearts Unite the Globe is a nonprofit organization devoted to providing resources to the congenital heart defect community to uplift, empower, and enrich the lives of our community members. If you would like access to free resources pretaining to the CHD community, please visit our website at wwwcongenitalheartdefects.com for information about CHD, the hospitals that treat children with CHD, summer camps for CHD survivors, and much, much more.
Anna Jaworski:Liza before the break we were talking about the research you have done especially regarding the polyvagal theory and that to me is just fascinating. I had never heard of this before I found out about you and I saw a little Youtube video, a link to the Youtube video will be available on my website if any of you want to see it as well. That will give you a little bit more information. In this segment, I'd really like to talk to you about the work that you do with the Somerville Foundation. When did you first start working with this nonprofit organization?
Dr. Liza Morton:The Somerville Foundation is a leading charity in the UK and they support adults who were born with a heart condition. And I've been working as their Scottish campaign manager since I submitted a petition to the Scottish Parliament in 2012 following a life threatening incident with my own care. Following that I've sat on and chaired Scotland's Scottish Congenital Cardiac Advisory Board. And finally in January of 2018 Scottish healthcare standards for the first time were published and they include recommendations for psychological support. So that was something that I was really quite pleased of and to say it's the first time we've had healthcare standards in Scotland.
Anna Jaworski:Wow.
Dr. Liza Morton:So I'm now working with Health Improvement Scotland to develop standards for local care and we also have been invited to sit on the Scottish Obstetric Cardiology Network. There's an issue with maternal death and the highest maternal death is actually with mothers with heart conditions. So that's something I've been asked to sit on as well. So things are moving forward and the role I have with the Sommerville Foundation that is very much advocacy and campaigning and trying to improve care but I do also work with them to develop pychoeducational materials because that's something that I'm really keen to do is to empower patients and empower other people like myself with knowledge. So anything that I learned or publish academically, I'm also really keen to make sure that that knowledge is accessible to the people who will benefit most from it.
Anna Jaworski:I just think it's fascinating that you grew up with this condition that caused, would you consider the anxiety, depression, PTSD? Would you consider that a Comorbidity,
Dr. Liza Morton:I guess you could say yeah.
Anna Jaworski:Or is comorbidity only physical problems? I don't know, but it's definitely additional conditions that you are having to deal with and so you've been able to work through all of that to such a high level, Liza that you're able to turn your own trauma into a vehicle to help other people. That's really remarkable.
Dr. Liza Morton:I think in many ways it was of necessity and it kept me sane. And I think I probably went down that route to try and make sense of my own journey, but it also helps me create meaning from my own experiences and get something and turn it into something positive.
Anna Jaworski:That's such a healthy response to be able to do something like that. It gets you outside of yourself and looking at yourself more objectively. I mean you're still subjectively going to feel what you feel. You're still going to have the memories and the nightmares that you had. But I think that when you can't give words to what it is that you're experiencing, it dispels some of the scariness, don't you?
Dr. Liza Morton:I think so. And I think possibly part of that journey that I've missed is in my training as a counseling psychologist. It's mandatory to have therapy and I had therapy and then I actually went on and had additional therapy with a body psychotherapist because it's not safe to work with clients if you've not done your own stuff. And I found that incredibly beneficial. And I think if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't be in the place I am now to be able to explore it from a kind of academic and an objective stand point.
Anna Jaworski:Now by working with the Somerville Foundation, you must be coming into contact with lots of other people who also have similar experiences.
Dr. Liza Morton:Yes, we see that all the time and some of our foundation has got a very active closed Facebook group. It is a great place for peer support, and for many the discussions and questions are around mental health It's just such a huge issue.
Anna Jaworski:Oh, it is a huge issue. So one of the situations that I have seen happen here in the United States is that while we are now aware of the fact that yes, psychological trauma does occur for a lot of people with congenital heart disease, we don't have enough trained specialists to help our heart warriors. Do you have any advice about that?
Dr. Liza Morton:I think part of the issue, and that's part of what frustrates me, we have the knowledge in psychology and things have moved on significantly in terms of our understanding or things like polyvagal theory and psychotherapy. A lot of the time it's about trying to push that through and finding the funding to do that because it's available. I'm also hugely passionate about promoting psychological informed medical care. So I think that with that understanding and with the framework that I spoke about, there are many things that we could be doing to mitigate against the factors that can contribute to trauma and prevent that in the first place. But we don't have to wait until people become traumatized or have PTSD or it's got to that stage. I think there's so many things that we could be doing. For example, just a couple of weeks ago, I had an article published in the Journal of Health Psychology about using psychologically informed medical care to improve mental health and wellbeing for people living with a heart condition from birth. Medicine has moved so fast in the last 50 years, we now know that 90% of babies that are born with a heart condition will live to adulthood, and then the 40's only 20% dead. And that's hugely significant and it's a success story of medicine. But what's happened is that people are depending on less humanized medical interventions for that survival. And it means that a lot of people are having experiences that are probably out last the normal human experience and they can be scary and frightening and painful. And I think we really needed to look at that and to think how can we minimize any psychological impact. And I think there are so many different ways that we can do that and that we could improve care to that end. I think there's a lot of things that hospitals could be doing that could be changed to make us feel safer. Hospitals tend to be quite noisy with harsh lighting and our sleep is often disturbed to take observations or blood pressure, et cetera. And often that fits the routine of medics rather than clinical needs. And sleep is so important when you're recovering and you're not feeling well.
Anna Jaworski:Exactly.
Dr. Liza Morton:And then things like being asked to be wearing revealing hospital gowns can add to stress and feelings of disempowerment. And if fact, that's something I'm looking at at the moment with collaborators at the Strathclyde University. I also think compassionate communication from healthcare professionals and consistency of care are absolutely vital because of how people communicate to us, is such a big part of whether or not we feel safe within a relationship. It's so important to feel safe. And I think for this population, when so many of the treatments are pioneering and we don't really know and there's so much uncertainty anyway, then we really need to have safety where we can.
Anna Jaworski:Right.
Dr. Liza Morton:I know personally that many of the most traumatizing experiences I've had have been when I've not been able to access the care I've needed. I think that they're living with this condition brings so many uncertainties that we need certainty where we can have it and we know that feeling uncertain can contribute to anxiety and trauma itself. And we know that our studies that have shown that survival rates increase when doctors make eye contact and shake the patient's hand. So just the simplest things. If they were integral parts of training for medics, I would like to see that. And just thinking about a hospital environment from a healing and trauma-informed perspective would make such a difference and being in company of a soothing parent as one space feast and I'm feeling from safety, so I think it's incredibly important to have a loved one by your side for children but also adults. And I think it's also important to any therapeutic interventions include an understanding of that background so that they include a focus on safety and stabilization. And there are also techniques that we can learn to help us feel safer in our bodies such as meditation. It'd be like breathing and relaxation exercises, safety and coping statements and you can find a lot more about them. I've got a research blog or my website and also links to publications by then. A final thing I would say in terms of feeling safe, social inclusion is really important and for improving better awareness and understanding, because like I mentioned before to the head confession that can create difficulties in terms of employment, schooling, understanding with peers. And so as such, that was one of the reasons I co-created Scarred For Life on behalf of the Sommerville Foundation with two friends who also happened to be born with a heart condition, Caroline Wilson and Jenny Kumar. And we created that photography exhibition of portraits of adults with congenital heart disease to try and help change perceptions about scars. And it also told the story of each adult on the back so that people could start to understand both the kind of heterogenity and all of the different stories. And it was launched at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in 2015 where it stayed for a month did a we've since toured around various venues including Scottish Parliament. And it was really well received by the public and had national media attention here in Scotland. And since then the Sommerville Foundation has replicated it across the UK.
Anna Jaworski:Wow, that's so empowering.
Dr. Liza Morton:Yeah, and it was so nice to read.
Anna Jaworski:This has just been an amazing program. I am so thankful. Thank you so much Liza for all that you're doing and gosh for sharing this research everywhere that you can.
Dr. Liza Morton:Well, thank you so much for giving me a platform. I don't see any point in doing any of this if it's not reaching people that can benefit from it.
Anna Jaworski:Exactly. Wow. Absolutely. Well, we will definitely put a link to your blog on my website. I hope you'll come back so we can talk about the different kinds of techniques we can use in and outside the hospital to make our children and our adults feel safer. But for now I have to say goodbye. So thanks again, Liza. That does conclude this episode of heart to heart with Anna. Thanks for listening today. Find us on iheartradio and subscribe, and remember my friends, you are not alone.
Conclusion:Thank you again for joining us this week. We hope you have been inspired and empowered to become an advocate for the congenital heart defect community. Heart to Heart with Anna, with your Host, Anna Jaworski, can be heard every Tuesday at 12 noon Eastern Time.