For the first time in her hard-fought life, Malkie Brandler, 21, has a normal heart.
Born with a single ventricle that didn’t allow for her heart to be divided into four normal chambers, Brandler underwent three heart surgeries by the age of two to survive. She managed to grow up and go to school but grew weaker and smaller than her peers and could never really participate in physical activities like her friends and siblings.
That will now happily change because of the six-hour heart transplant she underwent at The Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in the capable hands of Dr. Samuel Weinstein and his transplant team.
“It’s truly amazing,” a beaming Brandler said on Friday morning, a few hours before she was to be released to go home to Spring Valley. “I already feel different. And when I saw my echo (ultrasound of the heart) today, I saw a normal heart with two ventricles and four chambers. I have an actual heart!”
Weinstein, the director of pediatric cardiothoracic surgery at Montefiore, has performed more than 100 pediatric transplants in his nine years there. And given Brandler’s prior surgeries and re-routed circulation, her transplant was more challenging and risky than most.
“But everyone on the team was aware and knew what to expect and contributed to a successful outcome,” said Weinstein, who got the call at 3 a.m. on May 28th that a donor heart had become available for the spirited young woman at death’s door.
The work, he said, is immensely rewarding.
“You have a huge impact not just on the patient’s life, but on an entire family,” said Weinstein. “You can see on the faces of the family how intense their desire is for their family member to get better. When I told Malkie’s mother and father and brothers and sisters that she was stable, that her oxygen level was up and she was pink, the two sisters started crying. At those moments, you realize just how much this issue has dominated the entire family and you are really able to make a difference for a young person you hope will live many, many years.”
“I think Montefiore is a special place for many reasons,” he added. “It has focused on building teams of people who are willing to share their expertise for the sole betterment of the patient. The transplant team is a perfect example. The doctors, the nurses, the ICU, the transplant coordinators all mobilized in the middle of the night and into the day of May 28 to insure Malkie got the best care.”
Brandler’s devoted mom spent most every night in the hospital at her daughter’s bedside, hoping a new heart would come in time to save her.
“She was deteriorating in front of my eyes,” said Estelle Brandler, a teacher and mother of six. “We were shocked that we got the heart in two weeks.
“We are religious people. People were praying for her all over the world. May 28th I said, ‘That’s her new birthday!'”
Asked the first thing she wants to do when she has recovered from the surgery, Malkie Brandler didn’t hesitate.
“I want to go on a hike!” said Brandler, who has also become an advocate for organ donation in her community and hopes to get a masters degree in library science once she graduates from Rockland Community College. “And to be able to join my siblings and friends and not be tired, and see nature and see more of God’s miracles, besides me! Because I’m such a big miracle,” she joked.
To the determined girl who pushed herself through school with honors and somehow found the strength to play the role of Yenta in her college production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” anything seems possible now.
She even imagines a Broadway career. Sounds crazy, no?
“I do have a dream to be on Broadway,” she said, packing up to leave the hospital. “Now that I have energy, I just might do something about it.”
hevans@nydailynews.com