In the axiom of American political culture is the long-standing belief that being born into a family of politicians can result in an automatic leg up in life.
But don’t be fooled by the bloodline. Charity Sunshine Tillemann-Dick – one of the 11 children of Annette, daughter of Congressman Tom Lantos, D-Calif., and Timber Dick, son of Colorado’s first female lieutenant governor, Nancy Dick – doesn’t rely on inherited political capital as allowance for herself.
Rather, she puts her smarts, talent, connections and operatic soprano voice and connections to work raising awareness and research funding for a little-known heart disease called pulmonary hypertension.
While Tillemann-Dick carries herself like any other bright-eyed Johns Hopkins University graduate student, she suffers from the same disease she works hard in her free time to help cure. Her heart could stop without warning.
“When someone is diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension, or another fatal disease like AIDS, people have a tendency to expect them to act dead already,” Tillemann-Dick says. “I’m still very alive. I hope to change the culture of us being so afraid of mortality that we’re afraid of the people facing it.”
The highlight of her campaign against the disease was performing with a classically trained pianist, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, last year at The Kennedy Center in Washington to raise awareness of pulmonary hypertension.
Rice, who is an old friend of Lantos, and Tillemann-Dick performed classical and contemporary numberss, wowing a crowd of 450 dignitaries, including U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
The Pulmonary Hypertension Association, created in 1990, presented the concert to draw attention to the disease, which afflicts more than 100,000 people nationwide.
Pulmonary hypertension has no known cure, but studies have made progress, experts say. The disease causes the right heart ventricle, a “low-pressure pump” designed to send blood through vessels in the lungs, to operate at an abnormally high pressure, doctors say.
“On average, people who develop this are not diagnosed for weeks, months and maybe even years,” Tillemann-Dick’s physician Dr. Christopher Lang said. “Of course, if the diagnosis is missed and disease progresses with no treatment, many people will die.”
Doctors don’t know how Tillemann-Dick contracted the illness. Two years ago, Tillemann-Dick was diagnosed after a series of fainting spells, a common symptom.
“She has severe elevation in pressure in her right ventricle, but luckily it was caught reasonably early,” Lang said. “She has responded nicely to therapy, and, fortunately, she’s not had any instances of heart failure. But a condition as advanced as hers is hard to predict.”
Refusing to slow down, Tillemann-Dick has taken on a bigger burden than most graduate students at her Baltimore school. In December, she testified before a congressional committee about the disease and how easily her symptoms were overlooked.
“My first actual fainting spell came when I was crossing a street in Denver,” she said. “… I never knew how unromantic fainting into a man’s arms could be.”
Today, her father, director of marketing and recruiting at the University of Denver for Engineering and Computer Science, keeps his cellphone close by in case his daughter needs help.
“When she fainted a couple of times, frankly, we didn’t think it was a big deal,” Dick says. “Now, I keep my phone with me and answer it whenever she calls, because I don’t know how many times she’ll be there.”
Staff writer Manny Gonzales can be reached at 303-820-1537 or mgonzales@denverpost.com.
