Heart4Ash (Skwig)

I forgot to tell you all how my first biopsy went. I think I was just so excited to be out of the hospital! A biopsy is when they go down a vein in the neck and go into the heart and grab a piece of the heart like a bread crumb, then they look at the sample underneath a microscope to see if anything has changed from previous samples. So this morning I had to wake at the crack of dawn to get my blood drawn to check my troft  levels for one of my anti-rejection drugs to see if I need to go up or down on the dosing. Then I went in to get my right heart catheter and biopsy done. Pretty easy actually, all they did was numb the right side of my neck and I just felt a little bit of pressure here and there. Not IV placed or anything, THANK GOODNESS!! :) The next thing on the list was an echocardiogram (ultrasound of the ticker) It is the craziest thing to see my new heart on the screen it  surreal for me. The last thing was seeing the good  doc and that went well. They told ...

Hey Ya'll I am out of the hospital and doing great! Thanks for all your support, prayer and love I feel so blessed and thankful, honestly. So on the 25th of March I had a swallow test in the morning at 10 am, after the I dominated the test I was waiting in my room with my mom for the doctors to come in and chat it up. The doctors came in and asked their questions and then they said well would you like to go home today? I said, "Darn skippy  that would be the best anniversary gift ever!" Very long day that was but I am so grateful to be home and sleeping in my bed with my other half and Wrigley. It's the simplest things that make me so happy lately and I am truly thankful for this reminder. I have been home for 2 days now and things are going great. I just have to take my time and take a lot of breaks, but this will slowly fade away as my body gets used to my new heart. Also to here is a fact: Normal peoples heart is connected to the nervous system, this means y...

Holy molely  the human body is such an amazing healer.  Just 7 days ago I was on the operating table receiving another heart from an amazing person whose family gave me a second perfect heart.  The gift of living.  The amazing thing about the brain and all those drugs they put in you is you can't remember what was going on.  Now that Steve, my mom and all the doctors have told me, I get very emotional and thankful for another opportunity at life.  I am so very thankful for all the doctors, nurses, therapist, pharmacists, family, friends and Katie Buckley.  Sometimes I want to say to myself "why do I deserve this?" I want to shout out to Mrs. Enright's fifth grade class in Farmington, Utah.  When I finally was able to be alert enough and my mom put on my glasses I was looking at a wall full of get well cards.  I said, "are those for me?"  The answer was yes.  My best friend, Stephanie Scotts, aunt Jacey's fifth grade class had wri...

Ashley is doing so much better, she is no longer on any oxygen and she walked an entire lap with physical therapy. With these improvements she can have ice chips with the nurses. She sure loves her ice chips!!! Hopefully tomorrow they will do a swallow test under x-ray to see if she can start to have some liquids.  Today Ashley was able to get rid of more drips and lines,  4 da ys ago she had 15 drips (medicines) today she has 2. She is looking great and the doctors are amazed at her "leaps and bounds" of improvement, that's what you get for being young, healthy and hot! Ashley biggest complaint is the steroids, they have all kinds of side effects. They make her anxious, give her hot flashes and make her skin crawl. Doesn't sound like too much fun, but they are needed. 

Anywho the stinking breathing tube is still in, which makes it more than miserable for Ashley. She is so frustrated, can't talk, can't get anyone to understand what she is trying to say.  It's difficult to see her suffer like she has. The Dr. just told us it's not all just up to her, her lungs may just be that full of fluid that the oxygen saturation may just be low. They have gotten lots of fluid off her which is helping and we are hoping later today will be the day. It's going to take getting that out to  get her up walking and making leaps and bounds of improvements. We are calling today day 2 post surgery, she was on bypass through the weekend which did not put her ahead any, she had fluid on board already from the first surgery so now the fluid has basically compounded. 8PM Update- Breathing tubes are out, still on oxygen, much less irritated, she has one of her favorite nurses on tonight and we think another one of her fav's  will be working wit...

Some of you may know, but Ashley went through another Heart Transplant yesterday. After her first first new heart started to fail, we re-listed on the her on the transplant list immediately. We knew getting another heart would be a long shot, but we wanted the option to be there if a heart came available. Sure enough 18 hours on the list a second heart came available that was a perfect match for Ashley. Ironically, it took 4.5 months and then 2 hearts in the same week. We, including the doctors, are all chalking it up as a miracle. It was decided not to wait to see if the first heart would handle the load she would need but rather to move forward with the new donor heart. Going through a transplant a second time makes you really feel for the family who lost their daughter, sister, spouse and friend. We are grateful again for the family and the individual who choose to give life. We were in quite a predicament and feel only divine intervention could hav...

I was hoping by now Ashley would be writing you, telling you how wonderful she is doing, but you get to hear from me again. Ashley had a major set back early Friday morning her new heart was failing her. It started with her getting nauseated and then by a couple of weird readings on the telepromter . She was sent back to the operating room to see what could be done. She has been placed on full bypass and full support so her new heart can rest. There are no signs of rejection and the doctors are in a conundrum, they don't know what happened. Ashley is sedated completely , she will not remember any of this. The hope is her heart will rest and come Monday or Tuesday they will begin to see what kind of load her heart can hold. Ashley needs your prayers and thoughts more now than ever, she is so strong and has the will to overcome anything throwing her way. We all believe in miracles and pray that one is happening for Ashley. 

After the other days SHOCKing experience, I had to go into the clinic today to have my device interrogated.   Basically find out why I got shocked…. Was it warranted?? My device is set to SHOCK me if my heart gets beating too fast, like 180bpm or higher. Which I guess I excreted myself too much yesterday. This is a little bit upsetting, I was hardly up the trail and I got shocked. How am I supposed to do anything physical and not get shocked? Think about trying to exercise but also having to worry about a horse kicking you in the chest at any time.   Leaving the clinic I was pretty bummed… Is my heart just getting worse? Anyway, I went to work at straws and about an hour into work the clinic was calling me. I didn’t want to answer because I had a feeling my INR would be too low again and I would have to be admitted to the hospital. Anyway, I answered and Dr. Kia was on the line. He said “I heard you left upset from the clinic today?” I figured he was about to give me a pe...

Steve, my mom and I decided to go for a hike this afternoon. So we piled into the jeep and headed to Little Cottonwood Canyon. We ended up at the Bell Canyon Trail. I was pretty stoked to see how well I could handle this trail compared to Mount Olympus. On a side note- My mom never leaves Gus Gus (Gus's extra LVAD computer and extra batteries) when we leave the house, even if it's only for 5 minutes. A little ridiculous if you ask me. So, Steve grabbed Gus Gus and up the trail we headed. We were about an eighth of a mile up the trail and BOOM!!! I literally thought Steve punched me or a big boulder hit me right in the chest. If you know Steve you know what it would feel like if he socked you in the chest. It startled me so bad. What happened was I received a treatment from my defibrillator which was implanted back in 2009. Steve called the LVAD 24 hour emergency number and got a hold of Genea the LVAD nurse. While Steve was on the phone my mom starts asking all the stroke que...

Welp nailed my clinic visited this morning as usual. My INR was 1.8 a wee  bit on the lower end so they bumped my coumadin  up a little to 18 mg per week. Everything else was spot on. No complaints on my end. They told me they had a donor that matched me, but when they opened up the donor the heart was too BIG :( but its okay I don't want another huge heart. I am so glad my doctors are looking for the best heart for me they told me today during my visit that they weren't going to give me a mediocre one, they would give those hearts to their older patients :) Which makes me feel extremely good!! Guess who got a job? ME!! I am working at STRAWS my bishop's wife is the owner and I just randomly asked if she needed any extra hands and here I am working at Straws. Gets me out of the house for a couple hours each day, gets my mind off of... you know!! But I am really liking it! Had my 2nd day on the job this afternoon. Come check it out!  7386 Union Park Av...