Ashley Alvarez and her Family

Last year when I got pregnant with our youngest child, Griffin, I developed a condition called Hyperemesis Gravidium. It got so bad that I was literally starving to death, which led to hospital stays every week it seemed like, until Griffin was born.  I had surgeries for PICC lines, feeding tubes, and eventually a central line, too, during this time. All these tubes and lines going into me developed an infection, sepsis to be exact. While being treated in the hospital for sepsis, the doctors were worried about the health of the baby and induced him at 35 weeks, 5 weeks early. After recovering from sepsis and childbirth, we thought everything would be uphill from there, but it had really only begun. After hemorrhaging for weeks after childbirth, I had to get a D&C for the leftover placenta. The first D&C failed due to my uterus getting perforated during surgery, so I had to get another D&C through the abdomen. The second D&C went successfully and we thought for sure everything would be okay now, wrong! Ever since Griffin had been born, my heart was racing all the time. I told my doctors about this and they thought it was just me recovering from Hyperemesis Gravidium, until I also started passing out. So we decided for me to go to my old cardiologist (the doctor who performed an ASD closure on me after my oldest was born since I was having strokes). After some tests, he determined that I needed to go to a specialist cardiologist. The specialist decided that I needed surgery to burn some of my heart to get my heart rate down, so I went in for my 2nd heart surgery within 3 years. This heart surgery I wasn't put completely under with anesthetics, but I was heavily sedated instead so that the doctor could try and "trigger" my fast heart rate. Well, I started having seizures on the operating table and basically, that led to the surgery failing. The doctor gave me two options after the failed surgery, and that was to live with this condition with medication or try the surgery again, but this time I would completely awake, with only local numbing for pain. Since I didn't want to live with this condition, we decided to get the surgery again, this time completely awake. After 5 hours of laying down on the operating table awake with excruciating pain, the surgery was a success and the doctor could no longer trigger my fast heart rate. So once again we had the thought that everything was going to get better, wrong again! I started passing out again and I can still feel my heart racing, which means my SVT (superventricular tachycardia) is back, and the 2nd surgery didn't fix everything. So now I am going through more tests to determine the next step. All this time my husband, Jace, has been working and trying to help at home as much as he can while trying to make ends meet. We have three young children aged three, two, and seven months. I try my best to be an interactive mom while going through many heartaches (literally and figuratively). I have had over 45 hospital stays this year alone and we could really use some help! I am doing this to relieve some of the pressure my husband is under. Anything is appreciated! We also appreciate the thoughtful words and love shown by so many of you! Thank you!