Name It, Claim It, Tame It: Heather Novak’s HypoPara Journey

In honor of World Hypopara Day, Patty sits down with patient advocate and award-winning author Heather Novak for an inspiring conversation about finding purpose while living with the challenges of a rare disease. Heather shares her remarkable journey as a teenager with unexplained broken bones to a diagnosis of hyperparathyroidism, until after she had surgery, when she woke up with hypoparathyroidism. Heather opens up to Patty about how she was misunderstood for so many years. Medical professionals downplayed and misdiagnosed her symptoms; dismissing them as anxiety and stress which has impacted her mentally and emotionally to this day. But for Heather, writing became both a creative outlet and a source of hope, allowing her to advocate for others living with chronic illness while pursuing her dream of being a best selling novelist. This episode is a powerful reminder that while hypoparathyroidism may be part of your story it doesn’t have to define your future when you name it, claim it and tame it.