
Help for Kiyah
Donation protected

This is me and my sister Kiyah the night before her 1st open heart surgery. We were both terrified in this photo, not that you can tell. We were being silly, making moments, not sure what the morning was to bring. Kiyah is about to have surgery number 3. She has Endocarditis, Sepsis aortic and Tricuspid, Severe Regurgitation/Leak. Heart failure. Kidney failure. Hyperparathyroidism (due to kidney failure)I'm sure theres prob stuff I'm forgetting. This third surgery is not a common surgery. Her heart surgeon has done one before, but it was 8 years ago. Currently he is checking with other Heart Surgeons(Minnesota and Madison) and trying to find something/someone that would be in her best intrest. Basically her entire Aorta need to be reconstructed. She needs an Aortic Root Replacement, Replace her Aortic valve and the tissue surrounding it, and they need to reroute all of the arteries on her Aorta! This is a very risky surgery. We almost lost her on the first round of surgerys. The Surgeon is rating the last ones at a 2 and this one a 9. He told her to bring her boxing gloves and shes going to need to fight hard. Any help would be greatly appreciated. She has Lots and Lots of doctor visits out of town. She is no longer able to work and her family is struggling. She is scared and stressed, not knowing what lies ahead for her and her family... Money should be the last thing on her mind when her life and leaving behind everyone in it is on a coin toss. Here is her story........
Growing up in the small town of Viroqua, WI, Kiyah had always lead a normal, happy and healthy life. She and her high school sweetheart Keith have a wonderful daughter named Alexis. Everything was normal. Then Kiyah started to not feel well. She didnt go to the doctor right away. Her and her family just thought she had a virus and figured thats what the doctors would say. Isn't that what they usually say?? Drink lots of fluids, get plenty of rest... well thats what she did. She had been having headaches and low grade fevers. September 9th 2014 everything changed.
September 9th Kiyah had spiked a fever. Kiyah was so weak and she could hardly move. Her mother Kathy came over to help out Kiyah... She needed to get to the doctor. Kathy had to help Kiyah get dressed and out to the car, then off to the emergency room they went. Her fever when she got there was 101.4 and shortly after that it was 104. Kiyah was admitted to the hospital. The next day to was taken by ambulance to Gundersen Lutheran Hospital in LaCrosse, WI. It turned out that Kiyah has SEPSIS (an infection of the blood) and it invaded her heart. The Cardiac/Pulminary Unit would be her new home for a while. Kiyahs health was disintegrating quickly. On September 13th her doctors said she had an infection on one side of heart.. leaky valve on the main valve. Ay that time, her kidneys were down to functionig at 50%. She had Mild heart failure.. Infection is in her lungs and she has fluid in them also. Sept 20th she was moved back into the Critical Care Unit. The doctors wanted to wait until the infection was cleared up from inside her heart before they did the surgery to replace the heart valve because the risk was so high that she might not make it through. Tests came back and they didnt have time to wait. Surgery would now be in days instead of weeks. And, since her kidneys were shutting down, she had gained 30 lbs of fluid weight and they needed to get that off of her so she started dialysis. September 22 she had Open Heart Surgery. When the doctors opened up her heart they got a heck of a surprise. It was much worse than they expected. They had to scoop out a bunch of infection, replace a wall in her heart, replace her Aortic valve, and put a seal around another leaky valve. They also found a minor area that needed fixed and said most likely she was born with it. After hours and hours of waiting, the doctor came and told us Kiyah made it through surgery!!! A million pounds of releif washed over the whole group waiting. A little while later we were told that Kiyah was not doing very well. She was requiring A Lot of extra help and is not in stable condition. Kiyah fought to stay alive that night!!! The doctors had to go back in for the 2nd time September 23, 2015. The doctor went in and removed a wad of clots out of her lungs and there was fluid building up around her heart putting pressure on it. A few hours later lafter surgery, we FINALLY got the words we have been waiting for. STABLE!!! Kiyah was released from the hospital October 1, 2014. She had no kidney function at all and had to go for dialysis 3 times a week to get the fluid drained.

Since then Kiyahs kidneys have slowly started to come back. She has had to go to Dialysis 3 times a week and do physical therapy for her heart. As of right now she no longer needs Dialysis. Her kidneys are at 22% right now.
Here is where it all gets bad AGAIN!!!
Kiyah went in for a check up... Thought everything was good. It is worse than bad, She is having another open heart surgery. Just five months after the last one... This surgery is not common and has VERY high risks. If she makes it through this surgery (she will,... she has to) she is gaurenteed to go into full blown kidney failure and this time it may be permenant. Please help her family out in this tough time. They all should be trying to enjoy the time she has before the surgery. I refuse to think any other way, but the reality is...Nothing in life is gauranteed, not even life itself.
She shouldnt have to worry about food for her family, bills, rent. This is going to be a very long prosses. Any help at all will benefit them and be truly be appreciated
Thank you,

Organizer and beneficiary
Bobi Hirschfield
Organizer
Belvidere, IL
Kiyah Hatlan
Beneficiary