Support Hannah Aasen's Heart Recovery Journey

My name is Hayley Lukach, and I am asking for help for my sister, Hannah Aasen (Elken). Sunday, October 27th Hannah went into cardiac arrest. We are still waiting to find out the root cause, but from what the cardiologists see so far, is that it was Ventricular fibrillation and most likely genetically predisposed, in other words, she likely has had a heart condition since birth and at a young he of 37, it caused her to go into cardiac arrest. Hannah was saved by CPR, and an ambulance arriving shortly after to shock her with the paddles.

After arriving to the hospital, Hannah was put on ventilation and sedated for about 24 hours. The next day (today) she was taken off sedation and she has woken up. Hallelujah! Hannah has been taken off ventilation now and breathing on her own. She was surrounded by loved ones when she opened her eyes for a short period.

She is getting some good rest now, all on her own. We are currently awaiting for results from the echocardiogram from this morning. Tomorrow, as long as she can stay consistent in breathing on her own, she has a CT scan scheduled so we can find out more on the root cause and how we can prevent this from happening in the future. She is still fuzzy from the medication but we hope to see her talking and becoming alert.

prayers needed for a full recovery!

we are not sure how long she was unresponsive but it wasn’t more than 5 minutes.

From the ambulance ride, unknown number of nights needed at the hospital, ventilation, multiple IVs, likely rehabilitation and so far from what we’ve been told, a possible heart surgery in the near future for a defibrillator to prevent another cardiac arrest. It is unsure what her recovery will look like, or how long she will be in the hospital. Her 3 children are being taken care of in the meantime, and we are all praying that Hannah comes out of this ok, especially for her children.

It is also unclear to how long she will be out of work, so I am here to ask for help on her behalf and hopefully she’ll be ok with that. As most of you may know, she’s not great at asking for help. So I am asking for her, as I hold her hand and pray for my sister to heal and come back to us fully, as herself. The passionate, loving and adventurous person that she is.

Please if you can, donate even just $5, which can go a long way if we can reach enough people, or share this go fund me so that we can help her to be able to recover with less stress and less worries so she can focus on recovery.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and helping if you can.

UPDATE below: 10/29/24

Hannah still has some amnesia today but she is conversing and understanding the situation for up to 20 minutes at a time now. That is massive progress from yesterday where she asked “what happened” about every 30 seconds, and it was not easy for her to hear her what happened, especially every 30 seconds. She is now cracking jokes while she is present in the moment, and she even got up to take a few steps today. She is so strong.

We received her CT scan results they took today, and her heart valves look perfect. So the cardiologist is looking to be spot on from the last few days assuming it was hereditary, that she likely has had a funky arrhythmia, and that is what caused her cardiac arrest. We are looking to hear more about defibrillator options soon so that she won’t need to live in fear of it reoccurring.

This afternoon she will be getting a few different MRI/ brain scans to see how everything looks. Praying that the amnesia is temporary, as what she went through was traumatic and it takes some time to accept what has happened and for it to fill in that lost time.

please keep the prayers coming as we are not out of the woods yet, though we are very hopeful and so proud of her progress so far. Our girl is in there

Update 10/30/24

Hannah is currently in surgery getting a defibrillator placed in her chest. This will prevent another cardiac arrest in the future, which is likely since she has had one now.

She went into surgery positive and strong and cracking jokes. She has been alert and the amnesia is almost completely gone. It’s just been hard to accept what has happened but there’s a few of us loved ones here to keep reassuring her and giving her affirmations on how far she has come!

update 11/3/24

Hannah is home and doing well. Her amnesia had subsided other than still trying to fill in that lost time for the first few days in the hospital. Which is absolutely incredible that she’s herself. She has a follow up appointment tomorrow and another appointment Thursday where she gets her bandage off of her defibrillator insertion.

All the love,

Hayley Lukach