Support Alyssa Reader's Fight for Recovery

Hello! My name is Shelby Taylor and I am starting this page to help with medical bills and more for Alyssa Reader (age 25) and the Reader Family. On Sunday June 9th, 2024, Alyssa went into a local hospital ER and was admitted for what we later found out to be viral myocarditis. After numerous blood tests and EKG’s every two hours, the doctors found that the left side of her heart was starting to fail. She was moved to ICU and later that night airlifted to a higher level hospital. There she was rushed into a surgery and put on an ECMO machine on Tuesday morning. Later that day, she had another surgery to put in a mechanical pump to help her failing heart move more blood. Unfortunately between the heart pump and ecmo, it was later determined that both were too large for her arteries and they were actually blocking blood flow to both her legs and right arm. Alyssa needed the next level of care and was accepted and transferred to Mayo Clinic Hospital on Friday June 14th, 2024. Once she arrived at Mayo, they determined she needed to go into surgery immediately to assist the right arm and move the ecmo from her arteries/veins and place it directly into her heart. The cardio thoracic surgeon warned us she had less than a 10% chance of survival. But Alyssa is strong and bound to show us different. After a long 11 days of being on ECMO, her heart had the chance to heal on its own and she was taken off the ECMO machine on Friday, June 21st! It was a huge win; however, the lack of blood flow to her legs and right arm from the previous week had been too much and showed signs of necrosis. The muscles had died. On Saturday, June 22nd, in order to save her life they had to amputate both legs below the knee and the right arm between elbow and shoulder. The placement gives her a great chance to have prosthetics in the future! Alyssa is here today because she is a fighter and never gave up. But she has a very long road to recovery. While her heart was in shock/failure it also affected her liver and kidneys and she will need continued dialysis while in ICU and then regular dialysis for months to come as she remains hospitalized. Alyssa has an amazing family and friends who are ready to take on this change in her life with her! We started this page to try and help alleviate some of the extreme financial pressure put almost instantly onto the Reader family and help Alyssa continue her fight. If you are able to and feel so inclined, any contribution would be so incredibly appreciated. It’s our hope to help cover the some small part of the medical debt the family will incur and also help Alyssa with her quality of life as she navigates her new world. Even if you do not have the capability to help right now, something as small as sharing this message will contribute towards Alyssa’s fight. Thank you for taking the time to read and share this, we love and appreciate you all!