November 26th

Ashley received her sixth of seven plasmapheresis treatments today. She is scheduled to receive her final treatment on Wednesday. Our hope is that she will go back to RIC on Thursday to continue rehabilitation.

We had a scare early Saturday morning. Just after midnight Ashley’s temperature started to rise. They began monitoring it more closely and they began placing ice packs on Ashley. By 7am the decision was to move her to ICU.

Jumping back a bit; on Friday she had a visit from old high school friends and later her brother Austin and relatives from Kentucky dropped by. Ashley was laughing with them and Mary and I had an opportunity to go out to dinner that evening. So the fever came as quite a surprise.

By the time the refrigerated blanket Ashley was placed on was able to reverse the fever’s climb Ashley reached a core temperate of 104.9. Needless to say we were very concerned. Ashley’s temperature slowly started to fall. It got down to 102.5 when they decided to give Ashley a break from the extreme cold she had to endure (the blanket temperature hovers around 39 degrees). When her temperature got back up to 103 degrees they turned the blanket back on, but it malfunctioned. By the time another one was placed under her and took affect the core temperature read hit 104.8.

As you might imagine our praying was going into overdrive. We also reached into the reservoir of prayers everyone has been offering up for Ashley. That brought results. Ashley’s temperature began to steadily fall she was tolerating the cold for an extended period. By 11:30 Saturday night her temperature dipped below 101. By Sunday morning her temperature was at (and sometimes below) 98.6.

On Monday Ashley was moved out of the ICU. She is still on the cooling blanket and she is still running a temperature, but nothing like Saturday.

The cause turned out to be an infection from an IV in Ashley’s arm. The doctor that first saw her Saturday morning suspected that and it was removed as soon as they could establish another IV.

Only time will tell how this latest infection will affect Ashley’s progress. She had not fully recovered from the infection that put her in the hospital at the beginning of November. The one thing that is obvious is that Ashley is a fighter. She is focused on getting better and she was not about to let this get the best of her.

We have every confidence that upon returning to RIC Ashley will jump right back into rehab and show us measurable improvement.

Ashley is in a new room with a new view. Fitting for the holiday shopping season she looks out on Water Tower Place. Now if that is not motivation for a 20 year old young lady to focus on getting better I don’t know what is!