Blooming Hope — Anna Jeter

The alarm sounds at an absurd hour on those days of the year when I am always up earliest. No food or coffee. And only enough water to take my morning medications. The commute is usually long and quiet. My mom drives while I rest, my headphones firmly in place…

When I was deciding which college to attend, my health was declining because of pulmonary hypertension (PH). That made my college decision — which for most people is marked by excitement and opportunity — clouded by my needs for accessibility and support. A few weeks before making…

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) patients use several analogies to describe what it feels like to live with the illness each day. One example is that it’s akin to breathing the air at the top of Mount Everest. Another is that the exhaustion makes us feel like we’re constantly running a marathon.

I often wonder what would have happened had I been born at an earlier time. If my life had taken form even a decade earlier, my story would have looked much different. Had I been a child living with pulmonary hypertension (PH) in the early 20th century or before,…

Throughout March and April, I found myself playing a hectic game of catch-up with my health management. Due to the pandemic, many of my nonemergent checkups were on hold for quite some time. So with decreasing COVID-19 infection rates here in the state of Minnesota, it was time to…

It’s difficult for me to identify when an organ transplant became a genuine possibility within my personal journey. For my parents, it was certainly when I was just 4 years old, at my pulmonary hypertension (PH) diagnosis. Like many, they heard from doctors that I would likely live only…

I was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension (PH) at the young age of 4, so I don’t really remember life without it. The tasks and routines associated with PH were a part of my day before I’d even begun elementary school. Because I was so young, I was able to give…

While I cringe a bit at the term, I would definitely consider myself a foodie. Food Network often plays in the background while I work. I was gifted a pasta-maker for Christmas, which I now use weekly, and I’m currently experimenting with sourdough bread recipes. I’ve loved food and everything…

The day you get called in for a transplant is a strange one, filled with all sorts of extreme experiences. Something most people might not know is that, in an attempt to execute the transplant procedure efficiently, patients are taken to the operating room before the donor organs even arrive…

My family loved dogs before I even came into the picture. My parents’ first child was a golden retriever named Sadie. Although I don’t remember her, she lives on through our family’s dog stories. The first dog I remember properly, the one I’d consider my childhood pet, was Chester. We…

By the end of my freshman year of college, it had become a bit of a joke that I would never be caught around campus in sweatpants. While my roommates and peers relished the university lifestyle of casual clothing, I was rarely seen in anything other than a fully put-together…

In 19 years of living with pulmonary hypertension (PH), the period of greatest illness I experienced was during my sophomore year in college. It was the only time in college that I was unable to live independently on campus and had to commute from my parents’ home nearby. About four…