At an age when her peers are planning for their future, Gina Pens, 27, of Coal City, is just trying to make it through the day.

Pens has severe dysautonomia, which means her autonomic nervous system is damaged or malfunctioning.

The autonomic nervous system controls bodily functions that occur automatically: blood pressure, digestion, heart rate and temperature regulation.

Pens’ symptoms – which began spontaneously one day when she was in high school – include dizziness, palpitations and extremely wide swings in heart rate and blood pressure.

She’s been hospitalized several times in the past year for these and stroke-like symptoms. And she’s also spent time at a rehabilitation facility more than once, relearning how to walk and use her hands and arms.

Despite this, Pens helps her mother, Sherry Pens, care for two of Gina’s severely disabled siblings.

Pens also is a paraprofessional at Coal City Middle School and works in a classroom with students who have disabilities.

She shrugs off any suggestion that her activities are heroic.

“It’s my thing,” Pens said. “I enjoy it a lot ... if I have to leave early for a doctor’s appointment, I feel so bad.”

Gina’s siblings, Anthony Pens, 28, and Alyssa Pens, 16, two of Danny and Sherry Pens’ children, both have hereditary spastic paraplegia type 35, and Gina is a carrier.

Anthony and Alyssa require around-the-clock healthcare. Both are medically fragile and nonverbal, and their condition is progressive.

But Gina Pens said it makes her heart melt when she can help someone.

“I could be having chest pains or whatever,” Gina Pens said. “But if Anthony or Alyssa are in the hospital, I’m taking care of them first.”

Angela Roudis, a sixth to eighth grade teacher in the Cross-Categorical program at Coal City Middle School, said she’s worked with Pens for the last four years and called her “an amazing person who always puts others before herself.”

“Gina is such a caring and passionate person, especially when it comes to our students with significant disabilities,“ Roudis said. ”She goes out of her way to make them all feel welcome and safe within the classroom.“

Roudis said Pens has formed bonds with each student in her classroom.

“And it is evident every day that she loves being with them and working closely to help the students achieve their goals,” Roudis said. “I think this is because of her siblings and the close connection she has helping to care for them.”

Sherry Pens said Gina has always behaved “like a mother hen” to her siblings and worries more about their health than her own.

“She’s caring and loving; that’s just how she is,” Sherry Pens said. “She cares about our family and she especially cares for Anthony and Alyssa. She’ll do anything she can to help them.”

The students certainly miss Gina Pens when she’s hospitalized and show it when she returns.

“They all come up and hug me,” she said.

During hospital and rehabilitation stays, Gina Pens still jumps on social media to raise awareness for rare diseases and to raise funds for an accessible van, which the family has desperately needed for years.

Although one rarely sees Gina Pens without a smile, she wishes she took her own struggles less to heart; several years ago, she even developed an eating disorder in an effort to gain a sense of control over her body.

“I’m not a good coping person. Everything stresses me out,” she said. “At night, I don’t sleep very well. My mind wanders all over, thinking about every little thing.”