I’m Aware That I’m Rare: Monica Penaranda

The phaware® interview

Monica Penaranda is a long term pulmonary hypertension patient from California. She was diagnosed with PH nearly twenty four years ago. In this episode, Monica discusses her near death experience due to a high-risk pregnancy and how participating in clinical trials has prolonged her life.

My name is Monica Penaranda, and I’m from Whittier, California. I have had PH for almost 24 years.

I ended up, at 16 years old, getting pregnant. As if that wasn’t enough of a shock for my family, also found out that I had something enormously wrong with my heart. I went to high-risk pregnancy doctors, everywhere told me the same thing, both mom and baby won’t live. Back then, the cases were as followed: mom dies, baby dies. It was a pretty grim diagnosis.

In my fifth month, I ended up in the hospital. My baby was taken from my womb, and three days into it is when I almost died. My dad had just went back to work because I had been in the hospital for a couple of weeks. My mom was alone with me, and they pulled her to the side…