Taryn Petry - phaware® interview 290

Oct 15, 2019

Pediatric pulmonary Hypertension patient, Taryn Petry talks about her passion for Irish dancing and how she grapples with restricting herself in certain activities.

I'm Taryn Petry and I'm a pulmonary hypertension patient.

I don't remember a lot, but I know I was diagnosed when I was five and since then I haven't really experienced a lot of limitations. There's limitations in what I can do in stamina, like I've been held back in dance a year because they were worried about my stamina. I haven't done PE for a few years, but when I did it, I would have to restrain myself and that in itself was aggravating, because I couldn't do what my friends could do. I was scared to do volleyball, just in case it hit my site or hit my pump. But since then, there hasn't really been a lot of problems.

I was bored with ballet and there was a presentation at my kindergarten and I guess I fell in love from there. In Irish dance, there actually four different dances and I've been off and on with some of the harder dances. Now, I'm to a point where I can do them, which is exciting, because I haven't done them in a few months, which is nice. When I transferred from my first school, which was a school that went from kindergarten to eighth grade, I moved to a different school when I was transitioning into sixth grade.

After that, I didn't really flaunt around I had this big disease that nobody knew about. I kept it mostly to myself, but if somebody asked why I restricted myself in PE, I would tell them and I would tell them what I knew, which honestly wasn't a lot then. I also attended camp, especially for people that have disorders. While I was there, there were a few hiccups like I wasn't feeling good one day, but they made it very accommodating. I got to make up the activities that I missed that day and it was a very fun camp.

PH is going to mean to you, [that] you're going to have to learn to restrict yourself. No matter how hard it is, you will have to restrict yourself in some places. That doesn't mean that you have to give up hope. That doesn't mean that you are weak. That just means that you're special. I've learned that I'm very stubborn. I'm stubborn with myself. Even if I tried to restrict myself, I still, a lot of the time... well, some of the time, I go past what I can do and then I suffer the consequences of those actions, whether it be dance, whether it be running, but I suffer the consequences. I still have this nagging in me that, "You should be able to do more," but I've learned how to control that.

My name is Taryn Petry and I'm aware that I'm rare.

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