Meaghan Scully’s recovery

My name is Meaghan Scully. I am 18 years old. I just graduated high school this past May. Shortly after graduation I fell ill. It all happened very suddenly. It all started when I went to urgent care because I hadn’t been feeling well or holding down any foods. My mother bought me there to get fluids thinking I was dehydrated. After 2 litters of fluids and meds, nothing seemed to be working. The doctor there then suggested I go to the near by hospital. There they also gave me another litter of fluids and meds, still nothing. So their next step was to use a bigger needle and go in and inject me with a blue dye to see what was going on. There they found fluids around my lungs and heart. Next, they decided to do an echo to get a better look at things. This is when they discovered that only 10% of my heart was functioning. I had caught a virus and the doctors suspect that I had always had a weak heart, so when this virus came about, my heart didn’t have the strength to fight it off. In shock, we were sent to Ochsner’s medical in New Orleans as soon as a bed was available. Here we spent several weeks running countless test and figuring out our best options to keep me alive. After many prodcedures and tests and meeting of the minds of my team of doctors I was sent home on a dobutamine drip, which is an IV medicine that constantly flowed through my body to keep was little function my heart had still working. This gave me a few weeks to wait for a donor heart. I was placed on the transplant list because they doctors believe that my heart wouldn’t recover any strength or function. After several weeks of waiting, still no offers for a donor heart, the surgeron on my team of doctors and I had agreed the next and best course of action was to have surgery to implant a LVAD pump to my current heart which was manually make it function the way it was suppose to. This wasn’t a permanent solution, but only a bridge to transplant. Shockingly and thankfully, the week before my LVAD surgery, I received a phone call on Friday the 20th of July, they had found a match, a donor heart. We rushed to the hospital in complete all the the miracle that had come to us. The next day, July 21st, at 4:43 my heart transplant surgery began.  The surgery went as well as we could’ve hoped. I was on a breathing tube and sedation for. a few days, but the journey had just begun.  Open heart surgery is very hard on the body, I was in intense pain for weeks, but still fighting through. The doctors very impressed with my determination and willpower to get better. I was released from the hospital to some apartments near by the hospital 9days after surgery. I will have to live here anywheres from 6-8 weeks.  I am 3 weeks post operation as of Saturday, July 11th. Everyday is still a fight, some days better than other. This has taken such a toll on my family and I. Both my mother and father having to take large absences from work, and still having to pay the house hold bills, plus my medical bills, etc. I will have medical expenses for the rest of my life. Any little bit can help, we appreciate all the love and support our community has shown through this difficult time. Thank you I’m advanced.