Heart4Ash (Skwig)

I had a doctors appointment this morning and everything is looking good. According to my LVAD nurses my waveforms are awesome and my drive-line site is looking mighty fine fantastic! It has been a month since my last blood transfusion, this means they are going to re-check my antibody levels. Right now I am at the top of the transplant list, but I have a restriction that the donor heart needs to be local. If my antibody test comes back normal they are going to remove the local restriction. Which will allow my donor heart to come from Boise, Jackson, Tucson even Albuquerque!! So this is going to make my waiting time decrease a wee bit I'm thinking :) Thanks again for taking time out of your busy schedules and especially around this Christmas season to pray for me, I honestly feel them, so thank you very very much! I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!!

It has been a full 2 months since Gus was placed in me and I have been out of the hospital for 21 days today!! Whoot Whooot! And how very thankful I am for all those days truly. So I really do have Celiacs disease ha I know this because I ate about 12 or more I wasn't counting chocolate riesens and Steve was like Ashley those aren't GF and I was like ya they are look . I grabbed the bag and started looking over the ingredients and oops there was wheat in the ingredients! For Celiacs disease you cannot eat anything that has wheat, barley, rye, or oats in it. Pretty much everything that is good. So I was on and off the toilet all night haha  pretty fun ... NOT!! Anyways, everything is going dandy here just waiting for my new heart. Thank you for all the prays and love I truly feel each in every one of them so THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! Wrigley was wondering who's bummed that there is NO snow on the ground this close to Christmas? He's not so happy about it.

Hey y'all I was thinking I would introduce you all to Gus my LVAD (left ventricular assist device) so I decided to make a video. So here it is... I have been feeling great since I have been out of the hospital this time. If I'm not bleeding I feel amazing like I can walk a mile and a half pretty easily because Gus is working good, but if I am bleeding somewhere I can definitely feel it. Ever since I have had Gus I've been bleeding so I haven't felt that great, but now I can feel Gus working for me for example, I can run up the stairs now:)  So keep your fingers crossed for no more bleeding please:)  Thanks to everyone for your prayers and thoughts I can truly feel them each and every day and I am very thankful for each one of them. 

I am HOME finally out of the hospital and baby it feels sooo good!!! My INR is 1.8 but my doctors decided to let me go home because that's all that I was receiving at the hospital was my Coumadin " warfarin " the drug that thins my blood. Anyways, I am home and very blessed to be sleeping on my bed not those crappy plastic ones at the hospital and my sweet baby Wrigley. Last date night in the hospital for awhile... keep your fingers crossed!  My loving friends- Kim, me, Jess, Scottie & Stephanie 😘

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 :)

Part of my blog is to create awareness about stroke, heart disease and becoming a donor!!

Top of the List as of 2pm ... It was decided yesterday because of my frequent “GI” bleeds that I would be listed at the top of the heart transplant list. They would usually wait at least 4 months after receiving the LVAD and then sometimes even longer than that. The way the listing goes is there is 1a, 1b, 2, 5 and so on, “a” being the highest priority. Normally one with an LVAD would be placed at “1b” and then when the Doctor's  think  it's  appropriate, they  would list you “1a” for 30days, if you don’t get your heart within that 30 days you would drop back to “1b”. But again because of the GI bleeding, I will be listed at “1ae” e meaning exception…. Basically, I will stay at “1a” status until I receive my new heart. So surreal, and tragic for the other family, but I will be so Thankful and Blessed for my new heart to come. Only bummer is I will have to do the whole open heart surgery again. 0 notes

M y Journey to Receive a New Heart... After 5 weeks of being on an emotional  rollacoster , I am starting a long overdue blog about my Journey of heart failure. Instead of starting at my most recent complications dating back 5 weeks ago… I actually want to jump back 5 years to when my life took a turn down a bumpy road. In 2009 I was playing soccer for Idaho State University, and as part of my sophomore summer training I had the hardest time completing 6 minute mile test, something with my effort and training I should have been able to do with ease. I initially thought “Sports Asthma” but the inhaler didn’t help. Long story short, a chest X-ray confirmed my heart was enlarged and I was diagnosed with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. Six months later I had a Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy Device implanted. This device was to help my heart function as well as it possibly could,  pacing  it and  shocking  it when needed. Blah Blah The hardest part of this new journey for