SHIRLEY – The death of eight people in one of Jeannette Morrill’s pulmonary hypertension support groups in recent years has pushed her to action.

Morrill, 55, who has lived with pulmonary hypertension for 31 years and is one of the country’s longest-living victims of the disease, has nearly single-handedly organized a golf tournament next month in Portland to raise research funds on behalf of the Pulmonary Hypertension Association. She hopes to raise $20,000 and needs golfers to join the effort.

“When you lose eight people out of a group of maybe 15, that’s a significant number,” Morrill said this week. “And for them to have died in vain, that just drives me crazy.”

Essentially, pulmonary hypertension drives up the blood pressure in the pulmonary artery in the lungs, which enlarges the heart, affecting its ability to pump, according to Morrill. There is no cure. Morrill said that in 1985, patients had a 50 percent chance of surviving 2.8 years past the date of diagnosis, but new treatments are improving the prognosis.

Where once she relied on a heavy fanny pack loaded with a black cassette, a pump that made a zipping sound, and a thin tube, all connected to one another and sandwiched between two blocks of ice, she now needs only a small bag that contains a light pump. The pump and tube that snakes from the bag into her heart delivers medicine every 35-40 seconds.

“My goal is to reach out to other people and pass on that there is hope,” Morrill said. “I just decided I had to do more for advocacy, and awareness, and do something to find a cure. I just can’t sit back anymore.”

Actually, the former Greenville High School teacher has never been one to sit back, even when she became afflicted with pulmonary hypertension. She heads and speaks at two support group meetings, one in Bangor and the other in Portland, every other month. Although the disease makes her tire very easily, she travels to speak to groups when asked. She plans to travel to Texas on Sept. 28 to speak to a support group there.

Of the 100,000 people nationwide that have pulmonary hypertension, it is those she has become acquainted with whose deaths have really affected her, including a 15-year-old boy from Harrington who was born with the disease.

In remembrance of the victims, Morrill said there will be a memory table at the golf tournament and dinner. She said she solicited sponsors for the tournament so all the proceeds will go for research.

The “Swinging for a Cure” Golf Tournament will be held at 11 a.m. Sept. 14, at Sable Oakes Golf Course in South Portland. The tournament will be followed by a silent auction and a social hour. A dinner will be served at Sable Oaks Marriott Hotel where Carl Hicks of Gig Harbor, Wash., vice chairman of the Pulmonary Hypertension Association, will speak.

The registration deadline for the golf tournament and dinner is Sept. 7. The event will accommodate 144 golfers. There will be a $10,000 cash prize for a hole-in-one on a specific hole.

In addition to the tournament, the family of a woman who died of pulmonary hypertension has donated a week’s vacation in June 2008 at their Cape Cod seasonal home on the oceanfront. Tickets for the drawing, which will be held during the tournament, are $20.

For more information, contact Morrill at P.O. Box 15, Shirley 04485, call her at 695-3042 or e-mail her at morrill@midmaine.com.