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@Aubrey-Hanks-1

Hello,

I'm creating this GoFundMe to help Aubrey with medical bills from this massively unexpected health scare as well as counseling costs for her girls.

Aubrey is a single mom who is fiercely devoted to her 2 girls Amelia (10) and Londyn (12). Aubrey works full time to try and provide for her girls however because of her massive health scare work is on hold but her medical bills won’t be.

12/12/24 9:04 pm

Aubrey went into Echmo surgery around 4:00 today. I didn’t want to write anything too soon because I didn’t want to jinx it. Her surgeries haven’t exactly all gone to plan…. So I was nervous but mostly really excited for this one. Taking her off Echmo is a really big deal. It means the doctors feel like her heart is strong enough to manage this again. So when the doctor came out around 5:30 and told us everything went awesome it was such a relief to hear that…. But then it sank in that her heart is functioning completely on its own again.

I still felt nervous tho because part of me is nervous this will overload her and we’ll have another setback. So I’m here at the hospital all night with her hoping it’s a boring night and nothing happens.

so far so good

12/12/24 1:54 pm

This morning we came to see Aubrey before Londyn came to see her to check in, make sure everything was okay and boring and safe for Londyn to come see her. The last thing we want is another traumatic event to happen when she’s here. They told me that she was on a lighter sedation because she was on a VERY heavy one before and usually that can take 24-48 hours for people to wake up from even after they stop giving it to them. When I told her this morning that Londyn was coming she instantly almost shook her head up and down and tried to cough. It caught me by total surprise and I asked her Echmo nurse “you saw that right?? Was that a cough??” She said yes… she’s barely under so she heard you. That was nice. They put a sheet over Aubrey’s legs to hide her echmo tubes (they are full of blood) to make her not look as scary and then we took Londyn back. She started out very quiet and hesitant to touch her mom. Almost immediately after we walked in the doctors came in with the echo machine to look at her heart again to evaluate if the Echmo surgery will happen today. I told her it wasn’t scary just an ultrasound and that you could see her heart on the screen. I asked her if she wanted to look and she didn’t. After a few minutes we heard her heart beating… Londyn seemed to perk up, started smiling and giggling and talking. She looked at the screen and watched it a little. I think she started to relax a bit. It was good to see that she didn’t want to leave today. We’ve spent most of the day in the waiting room with her as we wait for news on the echmo surgery at 4 p.m. This will be to remove it and allow her heart to work on its own …. We hope this can happen and she can handle it well.

12/11/24 6:00 pm

Well I was hoping I was gonna write that Aubrey got her echmo out…. Around 2 pm we got told no… and why. This whole thing is such an up and down roller coaster and this def made me super emotional again.

She was supposed to get her echmo machine removed today…. After doing an ultrasound on her heart we got some so so news … not the news we were hoping for… She still is showing too much damage to the heart. It needs more time to heal. Her chest X-ray shows she now has pneumonia so they are treating that with antibiotics. Her ct scan shows that her blood clot is still there. They are talking about possibly taking her back again to do another thrumbectamy. No clue if that’s how you spell it. This was the original surgery she had to try and suction the bloodclot out.

Right after that we had to leave the hospital and drive to go watch Aubrey’s youngest Amelia’s school Christmas concert. I definitely didn’t play it cool and started bawling as soon as I saw Londyn…. I just sat there and hugged her and cried. Probably looked insane in front of the whole auditorium… but you know. We recorded the whole thing for Aubrey. I cried throughout it because she needed to be there. To be the one recording it… and instead I’m recording it to come play for her at the hospital.

we are heading back to the hospital now to give Aubrey another blessing and play her the concert…. Todays been a set back… and it’s been hard

12/11/24 11:04 am

When we walked in today they told us Aubrey had a boring night. Which is EXACTLY what we want and need. The plan is still to potentially take her off Echmo this evening however while we were there with her the doctors just came in and looked at her heart. They sat for a while watching it while they lowered the flow on the echmo. They’re still seeing stress on the right side so they’re now getting ready to do pulmonary artery catheter so they can see constant heart pressures. They’re trying to see if her heart can handle being taken off the echmo today. They don’t want to jump to far too fast.

The doctor in the back is a quiet guy but seems to be an amazing doctor. He’s so vigilant. He walked up to her while they were watching her heart and moved her head a little and whispered “I’m so sorry my dear”…. Let’s just say I teared up.

They’ve been nothing but amazing. I know they’re super busy I mean it’s the icu but they sit and answer EVERY question and we’ve had a million and they explain things and give us details and real tangible explanations that help us fully understand certain situations. They don’t make us feel rushed or dumb it’s so nice.

12/10/24 11:06 pm

Today has been such a good day and a quiet day. We were able to play music to Aubrey. I explained to her nurses she’s a fantastic pianist and so she would love to listen to all piano music…. This respite has been soooooo needed. The doctors have said just no one touch her let her rest and heal. We have medical updates and then things the doctors told us that is just blowing our mind.

Aubrey had ultrasounds on both legs and they did not see anymore bloodclots in her legs so she has pumps now on her legs to help from more forming while she’s laying still for so long. They did an echo on her heart and although the full results aren’t in yet, they saw that her heart is actually healing and they went as far to say as they “think” there won’t be any long term damage to her heart. They looked into her lungs and didn’t see anymore bloodclots and they were clear. Her oxygen went down to 40% today but had to be brought back up to 80% after these procedures because she needed the extra help.

Some things to explain to help you understand what we are seeing. Her skin has been extremely cold this entire time. It’s been super creepy. The doctors have assured us that it’s because she was in cardiogenic shock that her body was only heating her core. At that point it doesn’t care about her limbs. Only saving her core so the fact that she is feeling warmer is so nice. They say she’s past that shock. She has 2 dedicated nurses at all times who never leave her room. One for Aubrey’s “normal icu” duties and one strictly dedicated to this echmo machine. They are CONSTANTLY watching her, adjusting things, pulling blood, giving blood, putting a flashlight to the tubes of blood coming out of her legs looking for air bubbles or clotting. Blood pressure, oxygen monitoring, medication, sedation. It’s intense.

Tonight dad and I were talking about how it blows our mind that it was “safer” for them to bring an entire team of specialized surgeons and this echmo machine to a totally different hospital and do this surgery than it was to drive her 11 min down the road to the hospital with the team and machine.

Her nurse said “Absolutely! She wouldn’t have survived that 11 minute ride without that surgery” another thing he said was that this surgery is not that common. Maybe once a month they do it. 2 separate doctors have to look at her case and both come to the conclusion that Aubrey meets the very strict requirements to be put on this machine because it’s so invasive. They have NEVER gone to another hospital to do it on a patient like they did to Aubrey. She’s the very first to receive this and then be transferred over to them. They said this was always the goal for them to be able to do this but even 3 months ago they wouldn’t have been able to do that.

Just shows us again she’s having so many little miracles.

12/10/24 11:09 am

she’s still stable they’re talking about adding a second heart pump depending on the results of an upcoming echo to see the full extent of her damage to the right side of her heart. They are talking about leaving something in her heart which will give them real time readings of how her heart is working. Something we were told and hit us hard is that we are lucky her clot hurt the right side of her heart.. it resulted in ONLY a cardiac arrest. Had it been on the left side of her heart she could have had a stroke and it could have gone to her brain … so that is a miracle. Pray for not that much damage to her heart

12/10/24

MORE INFO:

I’m learning more and more now that Aubrey is stable… at least since 3 this morning. I was told she complained her leg hurt on Saturday and she started coughing. She contemplated going into the hospital once breathing got harder but didn’t…. By Sunday she couldn’t walk 10 feet without gasping for air and she started throwing up. By then she had told my cousin her symptoms who actually had this EXACT same thing and freaked out once she heard her symptoms. She was at Aubrey’s house in 3 minutes forcing her out the door. Once in the er she was immediately surrounded by doctors and nurses since her O2 was in the 60’s. They did a ct scan and said normal test results take a few hours. Someone went to the bathroom and came back and she had results of bloodclots they were that big. Her nurse told me she had a MAAAAASSIVE pulmonary embolism and called the bloodclot a saddle. Basically meaning she had a massive bloodclot filling the main pulmonary artery that feeds both lungs. (It’s bad) Mr. Google Pants says saddle pulmonary embolisms make up 2-5 percent of them.

I was not notified until she was heading to surgery for bloodclots at 10:30pm Sunday night. By Monday mid afternoon she had sooooo many things happen and kept going downward.

I flew in Monday night and got to her at 11pm right before her echmo surgery. I told her “I know you’re talking to mom and loving it but she can’t have you…. She needs to party in heaven alone for a long time without you”

Her nurse said her right side of her heart took a beating from her PE and cardiac arrest… so this machine is exactly what she needs to let her heart rest and heal.

She’s FINNAAAAALLLLY semi stable. They’ve been able to wean her off all of her blood pressure medicine since echmo. Her blood looks healthier it was extremely dark before. Her lungs sound clear and they haven’t been getting bloody secretions from her lungs since the echmo. It will be evaluated multiple times a day she will be kept on this echmo machine and ventilation for days while being completely sedated.

Today she’s receiving ultrasounds on her legs to try and find more clots. She’s receiving an echo on her heart. An updated ct scan as well today is a busy one…. But hopefully a better one. Thank you for your prayers

12/10/24

It just keeps getting worse. Aubrey has received 1.8 liters since Sunday night. That’s 6 units of blood… a full persons amount of blood.

Aubrey ended up having a cardiac arrest. During mid afternoon Monday right as the girls were walking to see her in the ICU they got stopped at the door and had to wait until she was stabilized again. She crashed again right as I landed down and started almost fighting the ventilator… she would basically hold her breath. Her bp was crashing etc so they called it and did the echmo surgery. I made it in time to walk up to her… kiss her forehead… tell her I was there and she couldn’t leave us and then we had to leave and let the specialists do their magic.

This echmo machine however is from a diff hospital. Along with the surgery team that works with it. They brought everyone and the machine over to Aubrey and did the surgery right in her room. She was too unstable to move. They’ve now moved her over from Gilbert to chandler where this echmo team can work with her. This hospital is also really good for adult trauma… so I think she’s where she needs to be. Her cute nurse said she wants Aubrey to come back once she’s awake. She wants to know she came home to her girls

This machine is pulling all of her blood out, cleaning it and putting it back in but it’s not taking out her blood clots still.

So she now has a machine heart giving her heart a break to heal and a machine set of lungs helping her lungs heal a little. She’s still heavily sedated… and will be for sometime.

12/9/24

Aubrey has quickly become incredibly sick … she is currently in the ICU on life support and in critical condition. She has had a very rough day and night. She was originally admitted to the hospital for trouble breathing. It quickly became known that she had multiple bloodclots in her lungs and her breathing was in the 60s. She went in for immediate surgery. During surgery there were complications…. They called a code blue as she was coughing up blood. She had to be intubated and is now sedated and on a ventilator. With the possibility of more life saving machines including a heart machine if needed. Her body is very weak. The doctors are struggling with a path forward right now…. Right now we are praying that she stops declining, that her body can heal. That we can wake her up and that she will fully recover. Her girls need her.