Darby Hetrick of Pennsylvania has lived with pulmonary hypertension since she was 2 years old, but that hasn’t stopped her. She traveled through Europe, played tennis in school and went on to college.
I never let pulmonary hypertension stop me from achieving my goals and dreams. Even if it is an everyday ordinary thing I don’t let PH hold me back. I see my illness as is a couple of additional things to check off my daily to-do list.
When I was in high school I played on the tennis team because I really liked to play tennis. I could keep up just fine, and I made so many friends while playing. Our team broke some school records the year I played on the team.
During my senior year, I went on a 10-day tour of Austria, Switzerland and Germany. I had such an amazing time. We walked though a huge outdoor flea market in Austria, which was really crowded, but the food was incredible.
After that, we went to Vienna, toured the streets and visited Schönbrun palace, which was really pretty. Then we went to Lucerne, Switzerland and the top of Mt. Pilatus, which is 6289 ft tall. When riding in the cable car, we passed through the clouds to get to the building on top of the mountain.
After that we went to Munich, Germany, where we saw the Dachau internment camp. This was really sad but a good experience.
We also shopped around Marienplatz, where there is a church where the devil is said to have left his footprint while stomping his foot. Supposedly, when you stand where the footprint is, all the windows go black. We saw the footprint and stood there to see if the story was true, and the pillars did block the windows from that vantage point.
I got lost in Marienplatz with my friends. Since I was the one who knew the most German, they made me ask for directions. But the first person I asked didn’t speak German and was just as lost as we were, so we had to ask someone else.
After that we saw Neuschwanstein castle, which inspired the castle in Cinderella. It was really cold that day and we had to walk up a mountain, but it was totally worth all the time and effort because the view was stunning.
In Heidelberg, Germany, the town was absolutely beautiful. We explored the city and I got a really yummy crepe from a street vendor. On our way to the airport we stopped in Strasbourg, France, for lunch and I got ice cream shaped like a rose. It looked complicated. After we visited the amazing Rhine Falls, we hopped on a plane back to the United States.
My life is always kind of hectic, but I have been having a lot of fun. I am always reaching towards my dreams and I won’t let anything hold me back.
