A middle school student from Arlington Heights, Ill., has launched a colorful social media campaign to raise awareness about pulmonary hypertension. So far, thanks to her campaign, thousands of people, especially those at two middle schools in her district, know about it.
People who suffer from pulmonary hypertension, or PH, have high blood pressure in the pulmonary arteries, which carry blood from the heart to the lungs, where it picks up oxygen. The high pressure in the pulmonary arteries results from the heart pumping blood through them harder than normal.
Cordelia Skuldt, 11, has had the condition since she was 4. It causes shortness of breath during ordinary activities, like climbing up a flight of stairs, as well as general tiredness, chest pain, and a rapid heartbeat.
Basically, the right ventricle of Cordelia’s heart, which pumps the blood into the pulmonary artery before it splits into the right and left branches and goes to her lungs, has to work harder than it’s supposed to work.
In people without PH, the walls of the pulmonary arteries have a normal stiffness. But in PH patients, the arteries are stiffer than they should be. Sometimes, they’re stiff since birth, and sometimes blood clots form in them to make them narrow or stiff later on in life.
Whatever the cause of the extra stiffness or whenever it began, the right ventricle has to pump extra hard in people who have PH just to get blood to the lungs.
You might think of it like pumping air into your bicycle tires. If you take the inner tube out and pump air into that flexible tubing, you can easily pump for a long time. If you pump into the stiffer tire with the inner tube inside it, though, you have to work a lot harder after just a few pumps. Take-home lesson: If the vessel you’re pumping into is stiff and inflexible, it’s going to take a lot more strength on your part to do the pumping.
So, after the right ventricle works hard for many years, it can become strained. It can become weak. When that happens, your heart might not be able to pump enough blood to your lungs and the resulting heart failure can kill you.
That’s why PH is such a dangerous disease. Also, there’s no cure for PH, and the form of the disease Cordelia has is rare: only one in a million kids get it, the Chicago Tribune reported, citing Dr Dunbar Ivy, a heart specialist at Children’s Hospital Colorado, who has worked with Cordelia.
She takes 10 medications on a daily basis and has missed a lot of school this year. The district has provided a tutor and an aid to help her keep up with her studies, but she does pretty well in that regard by watching classes online in her home.
The Blue Lip Kiss challenge for pulmonary hypertension
Cordelia has challenged people to post selfies on social media using the hashtags #PHaware and #bluelipkiss. Then, once you do that, she wants you to spread the word about the Blue Lip Kiss challenge (and about pulmonary hypertension) by nominating others to take the challenge.
For example, the Oak Brook Fire Department responded to the challenge. Then they nominated the fire department in Cordelia’s hometown of Arlington Heights to do the same.
Now here’s the creative part: In the selfie, your lips have to be blue. They don’t have to be blue from blue lipstick or anything; you can wear blue paper lips for the selfie or even Photoshop the pic before you post it. But however you do it, your lips have to be blue.
(The “blue lips” aspect of the challenge is informative in that if you have PH, you’ll often develop blue lips because your blood doesn’t get enough oxygen and therefore doesn’t bring enough oxygen to the skin in your lips. Low oxygen levels in your skin and lips can cause a bluish color. This condition is called cyanosis.)
Be sure to post the selfie to social networks—using the hashtags—so Cordelia can count the posts. Even dogs have posted pictures on Cordelia’s Facebook page with blue lips.
If firefighters and dogs can do it, can’t you do it too?
