Stacie’s Heart Journey

5/15/20 UPDATE: I cannot even believe I get to put this in writing but Stacie received her miracle heart TODAY! She received word last night and was in the OR this morning. Her husband is on his way but the surgery went well overall. Now we wait and hope her body accepts this amazing gift! Fundraising is back on as we have copays for surgery and another 6 months of living expenses in CA before we can bring her back home. Please consider donating anything you can including prayers for a transplant success! Thank you, thank you, thank you!! 9/25/19 UPDATE:  Special thanks to Elmbrook Veterinary Clinic for holding a special fundraiser in honor of Stacie.  Thanks to their awesome efforts we have hit over the $20,000 mark!  When Stacie could work, she used to work for them.  What a wonderful place ~ they care so much!  We are super grateful and now are 1/5th of the way there.  We can do this with your help!!! 8/16/19 UPDATE:  Stacie is settled in California and received her first heart notification!    It was a crazy 4 hours for Stacie last night when she received word from her heart team there was a potential heart for her and they would begin testing it and let her know in about 4 hours if it was a good enough match.  While it didn't end up being good enough, what it did do was solidify that we got her to the right place!  She has only been in California for 10 days and she already had a potential match.  It gives us so much  hope that this will happen for her very soon!  Thank you all for your generosity!  Please keep those donations coming people, Stacie is definitely going to need it.  Her miracle heart is just a matter of time now! UPDATE:  Stacie has been accepted to the University of California - San Diego!!   She leaves Tuesday, August 6th and will have her first appointment with her new heart team on Thursday, August 8th.  At that time we will know if she is being admitted to the hospital right away or being allowed to stay with a relative for a bit under close monitoring.  This is the closest we have been to her new heart!  We appreciate your generosity and cannot thank you enough for contributing and sharing Stacie's story!!  Your donations have already helped her get the testing done she needed to be accepted to UC-San Diego, you are amazing! This is my friend Stacie.  After battling a type of heart disease most of her life, Stacie needs a new heart.  This campaign is to help raise funds to send Stacie and her husband Rob to California where it is believed she can get help and more importantly get her miracle heart.  We need your help to pay for travel, accommodations, transportation and out of pocket medical expenses while she and her husband Rob meet a team of doctors at the University of California – San Diego.  While there, she will undergo rigorous testing to determine if she’s a candidate for their transplant program.  Please consider donating to this very worthy cause – you may just end up saving my dear friend’s life! This is Stacie’s story.  Stacie is 42 years old and was diagnosed with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy in 1991 – a heart condition in which the heart muscle is abnormal and can cause electrical problems.  This was much to her and her family’s surprise as they had all been tested when Stacie was younger since it runs in the family and were told they didn’t have it.  It was after her father died of the same disease in 1991 that Stacie was tested again and found out she, too, would suffer from this disease. It’s now 2019 and after a 17-hour open heart surgery for a myectomy and aortic valve replacement in 1998 and a dual chamber pacemaker in 2000, Stacie has lived a pretty normal life.  In fact, when I met her, I was surprised to learn of the surgeries and all she had been through because she was so full of life, doing normal life things – getting married, buying a house, taking adventures with friends.  But in 2014, symptoms began to rear their ugly heads again.  The one thing I can say for certain is that Stacie knows her body and thankfully so, as she has been told many times throughout this journey that she was fine, but she wouldn’t accept that as an answer because she knew something was terribly wrong. She learned in 2015 her instinct was right after reaching out to yet another doctor for another opinion who told her plain and simply that she is and has been in heart failure for some time.  At that time, she was fortunate to be hooked up with a great team of doctors who have fought for her in so many ways over the last 3 years.