In Every Movement: A Musician’s Path Through Surgery and Survival

Onstage, lifelong violist and conductor Elizabeth Handman is grounded, poised, attuned to the grand importance of subtle cues. Those instincts have guided her through a decade of near-constant medical upheaval.

A Life in Music

“I come from a musical family. My mom's a pianist, my brother is a cellist, my sister's a violinist. My dad was a clarinetist. My daughter is a violinist and violist; my son is a cellist. And of course, my husband is a chef,” she says with a laugh.

It will come as little surprise that Elizabeth has always stayed busy. “I taught public school full-time, taught privately, taught in a youth orchestra program on the weekend, and tried to perform as much as I could in different orchestras,” she explains. “Possibly missing a little modicum of self-care in there.”

The cascade started in 2014 when Elizabeth woke up with strange numbness in her fingers. “An osteoblastoma [non-cancerous bone tumor] was discovered on my C2 or C3, it was pressing against my spinal cord,” she says. “So I had to have surgery within a week.”

Surgeons initially operated from the back of her neck, hoping to avoid a second procedure. But the tumor grew back, and in 2016 Elizabeth underwent a more complex, two-part surgery—this time from both the front and the back of her neck. “I have five titanium screws and a cage in my neck,” she says. “But super successful. Once I was fully recovered, no problem whatsoever.”

Stage 4 Cancer, and a New Chapter

In 2018, while prepping for a concert, Elizabeth noticed pain she couldn’t ignore. “It felt like a kidney infection,” she says, but urgent care ruled that out. Her gynecologist ran further tests—the diagnosis: stage 4 ovarian cancer.

“It was devastating; we had to move very quickly,” she says. Within weeks, she had a full hysterectomy. “They weren’t sure it was cancerous until after surgery. No one told me right away. I had a weird sense.” When the diagnosis came, she began chemotherapy.

At the time, her son was a senior in high school. Her daughter was working in the city. “The thought of not being with them…that was rough,” she says. “But I did chemo over the summer, and we drove our son to college in September. I was back to work that October.”

Elizabeth also began taking a targeted therapy medication known as a PARP inhibitor, designed for those with the BRCA2 gene mutation. “I did pretty well. I was anemic at times, but I could teach.”

The Aneurysm No One Expected

One of Elizabeth’s routine post-treatment scans revealed something new: an abdominal aortic aneurysm. “It was March of 2019. They did a stent, but it kept leaking,” she says. Over the next few years, she underwent three laparoscopic operations.

An aneurysm forms when a section of the aorta weakens and begins to bulge outward, like a balloon expanding under pressure. If they appear in the chest, near the heart, they’re called thoracic aortic aneurysms. Below the diaphragm, in the abdominal cavity like Elizabeth’s, they’re known as abdominal aortic aneurysms. When aneurysms occur at the base of the heart, in what’s known as the aortic root, they can affect the aortic valve and disrupt blood flow to the rest of the body.

“By the third or fourth repair, they weren’t able to do anything. I was so frustrated,” she recalls. That’s when a family friend stepped in and connected Elizabeth with the Chief of Vascular Surgery at Columbia, Virendra Patel, MD, MPH. “Thank God,” she says. “He didn’t understand why they had done a stent in the first place.”

In 2022, Dr. Patel performed an open abdominal aortic repair where the damaged section of the aorta was replaced with a graft, providing structural support and reducing the risk of further complications. “He said it would be a permanent fix—and it was,” says Elizabeth.

Soon after, Elizabeth had another complication: hernias, a result of multiple surgeries. Dina Podolsky, MD, performed incisional hernia repair in early 2024. However, the scan following that surgery showed something even more urgent.

From Aneurysm to Dissection

“I was playing a concert with my son on March 23rd, 2024,” remembers Elizabeth. “I stopped to pick up a gluten-free pizza afterward, as a celebration for it. When I came out to my car, I felt a gripping pain in my chest.” She recalls tossing the pizza in the back seat and pausing for a few seconds in disbelief. “I actually said out loud, ‘Oh shit. It’s happening.’”

Right as she began to dial 911, Elizabeth collapsed into the road next to her car. “An angel came out of a restaurant, found my phone in the dark, and I somehow was able to say, ‘I have an aneurysm in my ascending aorta.’” She was rushed to Vassar Hospital.

Elizabeth had dissected her ascending aorta, a life-threatening emergency. “It was a series of all of these amazing miracles—the hospital was very close, the CT surgeon on call lived nearby. I had open-heart surgery that night. It saved my life,” she says. “But it was the hardest recovery I’ve ever had.”

Along with some initial medical complications, Elizabeth struggled in the aftermath. “Driving alone was hard. I was scared; I think I had PTSD. I cried every day in cardiac rehab,” she says.

“It was the trauma, the suddenness of it all. I really thought I was going to die that night.”

She later learned that she still had a dissected portion in her aortic root and would need another surgery. Her team at the Aortic Center—including Dr. Patel and Hiroo Takayama, MD, PhD—kept close watch. “They are the dream team,” she says.

By the end of 2024, her dissection was growing, and she couldn’t bear to wait much longer. Elizabeth told Dr. Patel and Dr. Takayama that it didn’t matter when, she would take the soonest date possible. Lo and behold, she got the call on Christmas Eve. “We postponed Christmas, and I went in the day they called,” she says. It would be her second open-heart procedure in less than a year: a valve sparing aortic root replacement, also known as the David Procedure, and total arch replacement. This operation allows for graft repair of the aortic root aneurysm while still leaving the aortic valve intact.

Recovery Again, and Again

The second heart surgery went smoother.

“Dr. Takayama said it would be easier, and he was right. My body knew what to do this time,” says Elizabeth. “I moved more easily, healed faster.”

Still, her brachial nerve had been damaged in the emergency surgery the year before, and full use of her right hand has yet to return. “I wear a hand brace and KT tape,” she says. “But it’s getting better. Nerves take time.”

Elizabeth returned to playing viola just four weeks after surgery. “It was ten minutes a day at first, but it helps me recover. Playing is the thing that gets me back to myself.” Then, exactly one year after her emergency dissection, in March 2025, she played a full concert with her son. “It was a powerful day, to say the least,” she remembers, tears in her eyes, “To be alive, playing. To have my family. To play again with my family.”

Elizabeth now checks in with her team every six months. “I have a graft in my abdominal aorta and a graft in my ascending aorta. There’s a section that’s still mine,” she says with a wry laugh. “Hopefully it holds.”

There may be more surgery ahead, but her perspective has shifted. “It used to be so upsetting. Now, I can approach it with more grace,” Elizabeth says. “This is my journey, and I will recover from that too.”

She credits her survival to her medical team and her family. Her husband, Franklin, has cared for her through every recovery. “He’s my rock. He cooks, cleans, does everything so I can rest and heal.” Her children, Bela and Chris, are another source of unwavering support. “It’s not always about feeling grateful, but feeling connected to the positive flow of my life, and my kids are a part of that,” she added. “They are amazing. We play gigs together; it’s the greatest joy.”

Elizabeth doesn’t know why her body keeps throwing challenges her way. “But I have a strong desire to be alive,” she says. “And there are people with amazing skills who are helping me do that. It’s incredible.”

“I took an audition last Monday for the Radio City Christmas Spectacular Orchestra. That was huge, just five months since my December surgery,” she proclaims. “It doesn’t matter if I get it. I'm grateful, super grateful, because here I am.”