Cassie's Journey

Cassie continues to fight and focus daily on her recovery 

She has progressed in her trache mask breathing on room air for up to 9-10 hours a day. She is becoming more comfortable with the speaking valve and is improving her ability to effectively vocalize. Speech therapy continues to emphasize swallow strengthening and have cleared Cassie to utilize ice chips to practice. 

PT/OT work with her daily with emphasis these last couple days on upper extremity dexterity and core stability to regain hand function and improve her sitting ability. 

She remains on intermittent dialysis for proper fluid offload and has not yet regained much function from her kidneys. 

She was prepared for a large surgery on Tuesday June 3rd on her right foot. The Surgeon was optimistic of the potential to conserve most of her foot and utilize her back muscle (Latissimus Dorsi) as a muscle flap to create a functional foot. However, early in the procedure the surgeon discovered that there was extensive foot bone damage and deemed the foot non-viable.  At this point the surgeon and team are discussing further options, but surgical intervention on the right leg is inevitable. 

Although this was tough on her, The team and surgeon reiterated how optimistic and confident they are that return to full function (walking, pickleball, running) is extremely possible and plan to make all decisions based on her best functional interest. 

We appreciate the continued support and never ending prayers for our beloved Cassie. We understand the ever fluctuating nature of her situation and have decided this page will post past-tense facts that have occurred in her recovery rather than hypothetical future possibilities. 

Please continue to send Cassie encouragement as she navigates the hills and valleys of recovery

Cassie had a productive weekend where she continued to work with Physical / Occupational Therapy on her hand dexterity, arm and leg movement, and core stability. She has continued to get more strength throughout her body.

Cassie continues to work on room air and has gotten up to 9 hours in a day. She is continuing to push her limits to go further off the use of ventilation support. While she is able to be on room air more, she has been able to increase her time talking to the family.

Cassie is continuing to tolerate dialysis well. She has dialysis performed 3-4 times a week depending on her fluid levels.

The family has continued to see her increase her endurance as she continues her road to recovery.

Cassie has had a busy last few days focusing on PT / OT sessions and continuing to work on her breathing with the trach mask. She has been able to get up to 8 hours on the trach mask, and is only on CPAP at night. CPAP lets her initiate breaths, but provides her with oxygen support.

Speech has also evaluated her swallowing ability to see if she can eat / drink. While her swallowing ability looks okay, she is still not strong enough to be able to eat or drink on her own. Speech will work with her to strengthen those muscles and allow for her to eat and drink by giving Cassie swallowing exercises.

Cassie was also able to soak up some sun rays outside for 45 minutes today. Over the past few days she has been able to speak for an hour at a time to the family, where she has reiterated how thankful she is for all the love and support that her community has provided to her. Cassie and the family would like to thank the Van Buren Community for making Cassie the honoree for the last day of school walk, and for providing awareness about organ donation.

Cassie continues to make meaningful strides in her recovery with unwavering faith and determination. The most uplifting moment was on Saturday when she got to take a 45 minute trip outside. Cassie was able to soak up the sunshine with a big smile on her face, a huge morale boost for her and the family

Her progress in physical and occupational therapy has been encouraging, as she has been able to sit up on the edge of bed for 25 minutes and complete arm, hand and trunk exercises. Cassie for the first time was also assisted by the staff into a chair where she stayed for a full two hours. Although it seems like small steps, they’re big wins reflecting the strength she continues to show daily.

Cassie’s transplanted heart continues to maintain proper function as she was able to wean entirely off dobutamine (heart assist medication) without issue. She has made notable improvement in lung function as she was able to tolerate 4 hours of “room air” for two consecutive days. This is a significant milestone that can allow for more use of the speaking valve and the potential of the speech team to evaluate her for a swallowing test – a step toward being able to eat and drink again. 

While her kidneys still aren’t functioning at full capacity, she remains off continuous renal therapy and is stable with intermittent dialysis every other day. They have confirmed that the kidney’s are producing but not at the consistent rate required for normal fluid offload. 

Additionally, the plastics team is very pleased with the healing of her left residual limb. If progress continues, they’re preparing to move forward with surgical intervention on the right lower extremity in the next few weeks.

Cassie continues to express her extreme gratitude for the multitude of thoughts, prayers, cards, and assistance the family has received throughout this process. Every single prayer continues to make a difference. This journey is full of peaks and valleys, but with continued encouragement Cassie remains ready to face each step ahead with strength and resilience.

Cassie has had a busy week in her recovery. On Monday Cassie went back to the OR (her 17th trip). The plastics team continued to spend time preparing her residual lower left limb for a prosthetic. The plastics team was very pleased with the progress of this residual limb, and were able to close up all of the other wounds remaining from her fasciotomy. The plastics team did also confirm that there will be some form of amputation that must take place on her lower right leg. No surgery will be happening for a few more weeks as they continue to evaluate how to approach the amputation.

Cassie continued to spend time each day working with Physical Therapy, they sat her up on the side of the bed for 10-20 minutes and moved her arms and legs, They also placed an emphasis on strengthening her core and neck muscles. Occupational Therapy has also visited each day working to increase her hand dexterity.

Cassie has continued to work daily with the respiratory team to increase her ability to breathe on room air. She has been able to breathe for 4+ hours on room air. The 4 hour mark of room air was a significant milestone, as the Speech team then were willing to evaluate her for a speaking valve. She was able to speak her first sentences to the family today, stating how much she loved us, she missed us, and how she is ready to go home!

Cassie has transitioned away from CRT (Continual Renal Therapy) which is constant dialysis that she has been on since the original surgery. She transitioned to PRT (Partial Renal Therapy) from 6 PM – 6 AM for a few days, and today is beginning intermittent dialysis. The intermittent dialysis is currently scheduled for every other day. While she has had some breaks off of dialysis, the medical staff believe her kidneys are jumping back into action as she is able to offload her own fluids.

Cassie continues to fight through her recovery, tackling each obstacle with her infamous smile. She is working so hard to regain her strength to get her voice back so she can let loose, with all the thoughts that have been pent up in her mind for 6 weeks now. We wish you all a blessed Memorial Day weekend! 🇺🇸.

A huge thank you to the Van Buren School district for the incredibly inspirational video. Cassie absolutely loved it and made her smile ear to ear. A link to the video is below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wA4EV_FJl0wDjJ0yXzVXJpyDoOxgJUdc/view?usp=sharing

Cassie was able to get some good rest last night to makeup for her sleepless night the day before. This morning she was able to sit up on the side of the bed for 18 minutes with the support of PT/ OT. She did exercises to move both her arms and legs. Later in the morning Cassie was able to sit outside with the support of the medical staff. She absolutely loved her time in the sun! She was able to be outside for 15 minutes before she had to head back inside.

This afternoon she was able to do hand / arm exercises with her favorite physical therapist (her handsome and intelligent son). She has also been back on room air for the past hour and is looking to get to 2 hours today.

There are currently minimal updates on Cassie’s status to provide daily as she has begun the lengthy process of recovery. Instead we will be providing updates on Monday’s and Thursday’s. We greatly appreciate all of you that have followed along with us daily on Cassie’s Journey. You may continue to use this webpage to post comments / prayers daily and the family will continue to read them off to Cassie.

Your thoughts, prayers, and outflow of love have helped Cassie and the family get through the most difficult moments of our lives.

Cassie didn’t get a lot of rest last night and was dealing with some stomach issues for most of the day. But, she continued to fight and had a session with Occupational Therapy today that was targeted on moving her hands and arms. She was able to tolerate 90+ minutes of room air today. The medical staff was able to provide her medication to help relieve the pain in her stomach.

Cassie will look to get more rest this evening so tomorrow she can focus on increasing her room air tolerance and increasing her movement with the support of PT / OT.

Cassie had another productive day in her recovery. She was able to do 2 more room air sessions, totaling to ~2 hours and 45 minutes of breathing on her own. She continued offloading fluid through the support of a dialysis machine.

With the help of PT / OT, Cassie was able to sit up on the side of the bed for 12 minutes and move her extremities. Cassie did have a clot in her lower right leg, but today it was confirmed by the medical staff that this clot has cleared up. Cassie will look to continue to increase her tolerance for room air and PT/ OT sessions over the weekend.

Cassie had a busy day! She made good progress on fluid offload today, making a noticeable difference in her hands and arms. She was able to tolerate room air for two 1-hour sessions throughout the day. While she became slightly acidotic at the end of both sessions, it was nowhere near the level of acidity that she had yesterday after her room air session.

Cassie had another session with physical therapy that sat her on the side of the bed for 12 minutes today, and worked out her arms and legs. The nurses were able to get her bed to simulate a chair today, which allowed her to sit upright for a few hours throughout the day. Occupational therapy also gave the family some hand and arm exercises that they can continue to do with Cassie to help her regain arm strength and hand dexterity.

Overall Cassie had a very productive day, and that day got even brighter when she had a visit from Pastor Dan. Pastor Dan led her and the family through a brief prayer. Cassie will try and get some good rest tonight as she looks to improve her room air time tomorrow.

Cassie had a brief trip to the OR this morning to redress the residual limb in her left leg. The plastics team was enthralled with the progress her left leg has made, and passed on this good news to Cassie.

Cassie also made good progress offloading fluid from her chest. She was able to sit up on the side of the bed with support from PT / OT for 10+ minutes. While sitting up both therapists ran her through some arm and leg exercises. She very much enjoyed this increased mobility. After she laid back down, the nurses continued to do mobility exercises with her arms and legs. The medical staff is making an emphasis to increase her mobility over the coming days.

Cassie was able to tolerate room air for 90 minutes today before she became acidotic. As a reminder, acidotic is when she is unable to expel enough CO2 in her breathing which causes her blood to increase in acidity which throws off her blood pressure among other items. The respiratory team is evaluating if she will go back on room air later tonight.