I met Ashley around 2006 working at Safeway, and we quickly became close friends. Since then, she has always had my back, through good and bad, whether it was taking my sickly boxer puppy Zero to work with her, joining me for my pregnancy Dr appointments, or assisting with my whole crew during my health issue. She is always there to give a helping hand, and never one to ask for it.

In Fall of 2022 Ashley began having unexplained health issues.. blurred vision, cognitive issues, problems with coordination, which quickly progressed into severe pain, confusion, mobility issues, & collapsing. 

Because Ashley had always been quite healthy up to this point in her life she did not have a primary care Dr, which made getting these strange and frightening issues even more challenging to figure out. 

Finally, in desperation Ashley went to express care where she fortunately was seen by a very sharp PA, Danielle Hall, who quickly began to dig into this most difficult situation. As soon as Ashley figured out how to navigate through a number of insurance issues,Danielle ordered a cat scan, which quickly lead to an MRI and lumbar puncture, The tests found lesions on her brain and gave her a likely diagnosis of MS. 

Around the same time Ashley's dog Indica was extremely sick also, vomiting and not eating. They took her to an emergency vet, who (several hundred dollars later) xrayed her and prescribed an anti nausea medication, but a couple days later Indy still wasn't improving. We got her scheduled with my vet who performed (an expensive) emergency surgery to remove an intestinal obstruction. Thankfully Indy has since fully recovered.

Ashley was lucky to have Danielle advocating for her as well as having family in Arizona who helped get her set up at the Mayo Clinic for official diagnosis and treatment plan for her RRMS. She was able to undergo a thorough examination and more testing at Mayo which confirmed the MS diagnosis. The neurologists there proposed infusing a highly effective medication and a long term treatment plan was developed

She is currently staying with her aunt and uncle in AZ waiting for special insurance authorization to begin infusions of the highly effective but very expensive medication that will hopefully keep her symptoms from progressing swiftly and keep the most severe flares from occurring. 

Let's help her focus on recovering and not worry about finances for a bit