UPDATE::::

Alisha is still struggling with her heart health and is still unable to work. Her new medication is not covered under her insurance and costs almost $300 a month. Her cardiologist is also discussing possibly having to put in a pacemaker. Depending on this new medication, she still has a while before she is able to come back to work. We had short term disability benefits for her, but those have run out. If she has to get a pacemaker, she will be out of work for much longer. She always has a job with me, and I am willing to do anything to help her transition back, but the biggest factor is her physical and mental health to be healthy enough to make the transition. Even when she does, it will be very minimal in the beginning. She still has a very long journey to heal, but we are hopeful. Unfortunately during all of this she is also needing to find a new place to live, due to a toxic situation with her landlord. (Alisha is not at fault in any way.) As you all know, it is very hard to find affordable housing in Asheville, especially when not having any income. This extra stress that has been added on is very detrimental to her healing process.

We would greatly appreciate any donations as each donation will help to take some stress off of her heart, at least in the financial aspect.

Again, we are EXTREMELY grateful for every penny that has been donated, every word of encouragement, and every share. You all have been so amazing and I will never lose the feeling of gratitude for you all through this struggle. Thank you so much.

-Amanda

Hi there,

my name is Amanda and Alisha is my best friend.

On Tuesday November 21st, Alisha woke up feeling like she was drowning. She was coughing up blood. Her boyfriend, Sean, took her the ER feeling hopeful that it was minor irritation from her being sick with severe flu-like symptoms for the past few days. They sat in the lobby of the Mission Hospital ER for 17 hours before being finally being placed in a room. She was diagnosed with double pneumonia and upon further testing they discovered that not only did she have double pneumonia, but her heart was very weak. She was moved into the ICU and placed on a ventilator with hopes of giving her lungs a break and giving her body a chance to heal. She and her family’s Thanksgiving was spent with her on a ventilator in the ICU. Luckily, she was able to be taken off the ventilator on Saturday. She was then moved from the ICU to the cardiac unit where they ran tests to determine the severity of her heart damage and the next steps. She was told by doctors that she has an “80 year old dying heart.” She is 34 years old. However, there is hope for her to heal. But she needs all the support she can get.

Prior to this tragic week, Alisha had been suffering severe chronic health issues for two years. These issues began after she got COVID for the first time. She was sick constantly with a multitude of symptoms that left her feeling miserable and unable to get out of bed or work for long periods of time. She reached out to doctors for help early on and was dismissed and told that it was long haul Covid and they couldn’t do anything to help her. Through this she fought and continued to be a loving, supportive and kind mother, friend, and human. This continued with her symptoms progressively getting worse, her falling into severe debt, and her losing hope in finding an answer to her chronic illness. The past 6 months have been the worst. She woke up vomiting every single morning. Her ankles and legs were so severely swollen. She was exhausted to the point of not being able to stay awake at all. She was sweating constantly and having chills, unable to regulate her body temperature. Her blood pressure was abnormally high. She was having chest pains and heart palpitations. All of this led to her missing work and not being able to work as much, understandably (dog grooming is very physically taxing). We left work to go to the ER, got no answers, were told the high blood pressure was normal, and told to go to a GP. She made an appointment with a doctor who wasn’t her primary doctor (to be seen earlier) and without even examining her, he told her it was anxiety and depression. I remember the defeat in her eyes after this appointment. I was so angry. We could all see that she was sick, why couldn’t any doctor? So she made another appointment with her primary doctor. This doctor took it a little more seriously but didn’t for a second suspect her heart. She suspected sleep apnea and a sleep study, which insurance didn’t cover and Alisha didn’t have the money to do. However, her dad was able to help her discover that it did appear that she was experiencing sleep apnea. We felt like maybe finally that was a component that could be causing all of these issues. She started on an oxygen machine that her dad gave her and it did seem to help. Until she came down with a sinus infection… which led to the pneumonia… and here we are. The pneumonia was not caused by the sinus infection, but by the unknown heart failure that she has been battling this whole time.

Alisha is a loving and supportive mother to two kids, Skylee (15) and Mason (10). She is also a loving mother of 3 dogs, Dozer, Athena, and Ellie. Her kids and her dogs are her life.

I hope none of you have to watch your best friend fade from a happy, confident, fun, and funny person to a just shell of them self. She told me so many times she felt like she was dying. I cannot explain the feeling of powerlessness I felt as she continuously got shut down by medical professionals.

So now I am doing everything I can to help her and make this a fresh start. I am her employer and she will absolutely be out of work indefinitely and I do not want her rushing back to work or pushing herself further than her limitations. I want her to heal and get healthy before anything else. Which is why I am asking for everyone’s help. If you can donate anything at all, it would help tremendously. She still has rent to pay, bills to pay, kids and dogs to take care of, and so many medical bills. She deserves to have some of this horrific stress taken off her plate so her heart can heal.

Thank you all for reading, donating, sharing, anything. I am immensely grateful and forever will be for any help, support, and positive energy that we can get for her. ❤️