Prayers Needed

Yesterday, I got a text from my beautiful friend Ashley Salter. It read "Im in hospital"....I immediately called her thinking that she would answer since she just sent me a text. Then I got a text about 30 minutes later that read "Baptist ill call hen i cal tlk". So of course I'm panicking but I’m thinking she has her phone so she must be okay!

A brief history of Ashley’s health condition…..Ashley was diagnosed with ARVD back in 2001 when she collapsed playing basketball. “ARVD stands for Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia. Arrhythmogenic means causing an arrhythmia. The right ventricle is the chamber of the heart that is affected and dysplasia means there is an abnormality of the structure. ARVD is a specific type of cardiomyopathy (a disorder of the cardiac muscle). Simply put, ARVD is a genetic, progressive heart condition in which the muscle of the right ventricle is replaced by fat and fibrosis, which causes abnormal heart rhythms. ARVD is estimated to affect 1 in 5,000 people. The disease can affect both men and women. Although it is a relatively uncommon cause of sudden cardiac death, it accounts for up to one fifth of sudden cardiac death in people under 35 years of age.”

Ashley will be 29 years old in a few weeks on November 23rd so this is why I freaked out and thought it was her heart! Ashley has a implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) which is a small battery-powered electrical impulse generator which is implanted in patients who are at risk of sudden cardiac death due to ventricular fibrillation. The device is programmed to detect cardiac arrhythmia and correct it by delivering a jolt of electricity. When Ashley first got this device put in, it would go off all the time for no reason. When I say “for no reason” I mean she would be walking in the airport and she would just fall to the ground. It turns out that they had a recall on the particular ICD that she had so they had to go back in and do another open heart surgery and put a new one in her body. Ash has a big scar on her chest from this surgery….I’ve only known Ashley about a year and half now but the only time her ICD has gone off in the past three years was this year back in Aug I think…

A few weeks ago, Ashley had another heart surgery to change out the battery in her ICD (I think that this is done every 5 years) I could be wrong but anyway! The day before Ashley’s surgery, Ashley’s mother had a stroke and ended up in the ICU. (Her Mom is okay now…but could the timing of been any better!) Ashley had the open-heart surgery and was recovering while her mom was in the ICU.

The last text I got from her yesterday was “Um un icu riftgh now visting ha+rs r form 8 to 1130Pm Jopefupleyu I’ll ne I me moves romm omorrow”. She wasn’t making any sense and I immediately went to the ICU at Baptist and found her. They told me that she had been in the ICU all weekend. It wasn't her heart...on Friday Ash woke up and had really bad cramps, but she said that it wasn’t that time of the month and she never gets cramps. She went on and went to work but the pain kept getting worse and worse. It finally got bad enough where she asked one of her co-workers to take her to the emergency room. When Ashley got to the hospital they did a emergency surgery where they removed 2 liters of blood from her stomach. They removed her Appendix and tried to find where the bleeding was coming from but couldn’t! They sewed her back up and she’s been in the ICU ever since watching her closely to make sure there is no more bleeding. Please keep Ashley and her family in your prayers!!!!! Ashley was heavly drugged and her husband had sneaked her phone in the ICU but made a deal with her that she wasn't allowed to call or text anyone....of course Ashley didn't listen and notified me.  Ashley’s heart might be the healthiest but she is a STRONG woman and one my very good friends…please pray!