I’m Aware That I’m Rare: Dawn Meador (367)

The phaware® interview

Long-term pulmonary hypertension patient, Dawn Meador, discusses navigating her PH during a pandemic as well as why she and her husband chose to adopt after her PH diagnosis.

I’m Dawn Meador. I am from Springfield, Tennessee. I was diagnosed with PH in March of 1998, so I’ve been living with PH for 24 years. I had a nine month old daughter at the time, and I had noticed I’d been having a lot of trouble breathing. I went to Walmart one day with just me and her. She was so small, she was still in the pumpkin seat. So I carried the pumpkin seat into Walmart and I got into the store and thought, “Boy, I can’t breathe. I’m really out of shape.” Carrying the pumpkin seat, she doesn’t weigh that much. I got the seat set in the buggy, walked back to the dog food aisle. My heart was just racing, beating hard enough that you could kind of see my shirt moving and I could not catch my breath. I knew something was wrong.

The next day, she had a baby well check at our family physician and I questioned him about it at the time. When I asked him about…