I still vividly remember the day I was hospitalized and kept overnight to be picked and probed like a lab rat. A medical team ran dozens of tests to figure out why, at the age of 25, I was in heart failure, and had a low…
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“It’s only when our support systems look like they might fail us that you realize how much we depended on them all along.” –Meredith Grey, “Grey’s Anatomy” With pulmonary hypertension and all types of chronic illness, difficult days are…
As a freelance photographer, I spend most of my working hours at home alone, editing photographs on my computer. Most of my photo shoots are scheduled in the evenings and on weekends. My friends who are not photographers work 9-to-5 jobs (or 10:30 to 4,…
According to the Mayo Clinic, pulmonary hypertension is defined as “a type of high blood pressure that affects the arteries in your lungs and the right side of your heart.” When someone talks about pulmonary hypertension, they often think of only the lungs. Although…
The older I get, the more I relate on a spiritual level to Mike the Situation from “Jersey Shore” trying to force his head through a concrete wall in Italy. A few weeks before my 30th birthday, my PH specialist gave me the green light.
Living with a chronic illness is both mentally and physically exhausting. Managing the seemingly endless symptoms of fatigue, shortness of breath, dizziness, muscle pain, and headaches can seem like enough work for a lifetime. These symptoms are considered as being “common” for those…
With Mother’s Day quickly approaching on May 13, I’m trying to figure out this wound I left open over the years. Like many other young adult women with PH, I found out at the age of 25 that pregnancy would more than likely kill me.
YOLO, aka, “You only live once.” For much of my late teens and early 20s, almost everyone I knew lived by this motto. It was a way for us to justify our rebellious behavior, and for me, it was a way to…
“Do you wear glasses?” The question took me completely off guard. I was standing in line at my local breakfast spot and staring the cashier in the face, wondering if I did, in fact, have glasses on. The cashier pointed at two lines under my eyes that one…
For the first couple months of my recovery from a heart-lung transplant, I had a one-hour radius from the hospital. A woman I met in a waiting room assured me that eventually, I would be able to travel internationally. “They just load you…
Going with the flow and finding balance in life often seem impossible with a chronic illness. I wish I had the luxury to release control to the day. I wish I could just pack a bag for a spontaneous road trip, head out with…
April is National Donate Life Month, a chance to celebrate those who have saved lives through organ donation. Not everyone can be an organ donor — most people won’t be — but everyone can inspire organ donor registration. Rebecca Joy Butler’s legacy…
