I’m Aware That I’m Rare: Billie Keith

The phaware® interview

Billie Keith is a mother on a mission. She discusses her daughter Brooke road to a pulmonary hypertension diagnosis, why Dr. Robyn Barst is her angel and why advocating on behalf of children with PH is so important.

My name is Billie Keith from Mason City, Iowa.

My daughter Brooke basically, she had some chest pain one day. Pulled some rib cartilage and had a chest x-ray. It showed that her heart was enlarged and I actually work in radiology. I supervise an imaging clinic, and I had a conversation with the radiologist, could see that her heart was enlarged and went back to the pediatrician and he was like, “well the pediatric cardiologist comes again in a couple of weeks. We’ll just see him then,” and I’m like, “No, she has something going on. We’ll be here Thursday when he comes in.” He took out a diagram and he said, “well, they did the EKG and they’re going to do the echo. It could be one of three things. You don’t want it to be this thing.” Then he just looked, he was of Indian decent and he just looked pale, ashen, sick. He just said, “I’m…