Support Ashley's Duo Transplant Journey

Hi, my name is Ashley. I'm a type 1 diabetic and have been for 18 years. Three years ago, when I got pregnant with my daughter, I found out that I was having kidney issues, so my primary doctor referred me to a specialist. That's when I ended up finding out that I had stage 3 kidney disease. Over the next couple of years, it stayed steady at stage 3, but in November of 2023, it took a major nosedive, making me borderline stage 5. This resulted in me needing to quit my job at Kwik Trip of 6 years to work and focus on bettering my health. My A1C ended up getting better, but sadly, my kidney function was still decreasing. My Nephrologist finally referred me to Mayo Clinic in Rochester to be evaluated for a duo transplant Kidney/Pancreas. In June 2024, I went down there to be evaluated only to find out more bad news with my heart function only being at 31%. With that, the doctors had ordered a Heart cath test to get video image of the heart. To do the test though, they needed to use a contrast that is damaging to the kidneys. So before the test was done, they had contacted my doctors here in town to monitor my levels after the test was done. The results of the test showed that the left side of my heart was functioning very poorly and they think it was because of all the fluid build-up not allowing it to work properly. Once we got back home a couple of days later, they had me go do labs to check my kidney function, unfortunately, the contrast they had to use caused me to take a major dip, putting me at stage 5 end renal failure. The on-call nephrologist called me right away after he had gotten the results and said that he wanted to get me admitted to the hospital to get started on dialysis, where I ended up staying for 5 days until they were able to get me into the outpatient dialysis program. Since being on dialysis, my fluid build-up has been under control a lot better.

Now, the Transplant that I will be getting is a duo transplant. It is a requirement that after the surgery, I will need to stay in the Rochester area for 8 weeks max, for recovery and appointments.

The money we are asking you to donate will be going towards medical expenses come transplant time. That includes our stay, food, transportation, bills. I know this may be a lot to ask of our family and friends, but I hope and pray that we will be able to reach our goal so when it comes time for transplant, all we have to worry about is just healing.

Thank you for reading my story. I pray you have a blessed day.