HOPPY EASTER & Biopsy #3

What a great weekend it was!! Saturday my mom and aunt Lo Lo went to the movies, we went to an early showing so there weren't a lot of people in the movie theaters when we went. The Sugarhouse theaters are the place to go though, they remodeled and so everything is very clean and plus they have these amazing chairs. The chairs are lazy boy reclining chairs, dead serious! Plus, I didn't take a nap this whole weekend, but I was dead tired when the clock stuck 9 o'clock.

Easter day was a nice laid back day. Watched conference with the fam bam and then had these incredible ribs that my papa made with some potato salad that Steve and I made. I am so very grateful for each person in my family, even if they are full of hair and have 4 legs or not, even though sometimes we are a little crazy. But hey, we all have our corks and that makes us who we are :)

This morning I had another biopsy, echocardiogram and clinic visit. My biopsy went great, still think the little thingy that goes into my heart and grabs a piece is really interesting. Pretty freaking cool how far technology has come though. My result was a little bit different than last time, but they told me everything is fine. My echocardiogram went well too, my ejection fraction (how well my heart pumps my blood through my body) is 72%. A normal ejection fraction is between 50-70%. My ejection before my new heart was around 27%. Pretty big difference, huh? And last but not least my clinic visit went "2 thumbs up" good. They said my kidneys are working great, my hematocrit is 34 (normal adult women's is 38-46), my toft level is good too, so no change on my prograf one of my anti-rejection drug.

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Chalk It Up as a Miracle.........

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...

Stinking INR

Another day in this lovely hospital because my stinking INR will not get were in needs to be. INR means International Normalized Ratio, its a number that describes your bloods clotting factor. Doctors want my INR to be around 2.0 but I am stuck at 1.5, a normal person should be below 1.0. So the higher the INR the thinner the blood. Because I have an LVAD they are very picky about my INR because they don't want a clot to form in my LVAD. But, if my INR gets too high I bleed, so it's a fine line we are walking until I get my new heart. On a higher note, my mom and I did some crafts.... getting ready for Christmas and my baby boy Wrigley came and visited me, some of you are thinking Wrigley is a terrible child's name but he is actually my French Bulldog :)

New Day, New Chapter, New....????

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...

Heart4Ash (Skwig)

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