Sunday, December 23, 2012

I Need A New Heart


I received a heart transplant in September of 2008. My new heart has given me a new chance at life and I am forever grateful to the family that gave me my "Angel Heart Thumper". Today I am 19 years old and awaiting a second heart transplant due to severe Coronary Artery Disease.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Our Heart Heroe's


HAVING GRAND MAL SEIZURE'S......

That night I got a Seizure right out of the blue, my mom was not home only my brother, and I don't remember much of it I would have to ask my brother to tell me the full story, all he told me was that he came down stair's and I guess I was on the floor, and i wouldn't wake up and so he called Jerry, my mom very good Friend, and he said to me that while he was talking to Jerry telling him what happened, I guess  i started having a seizure, so he called 911, and the paramedics came and than the last thing i remember is waking up the next morning at home in my mom's bed.

 The Next Morning, I woke up and my boyfriend was home with me taking care of me and making sure I was okay , but I guess he was upstairs and he came down stair's and fawned me having another seizure, So the Paramedic's came again and got me And they new who i was from the night before. So the last  thing I remember is waking up in the hospital bed and freaking out cause i didn't know what happened and how i got there. So the next morning i was discharged and sent home. And I'm doing allot better. They are going to do more test, and see what exactly caused this , so far they think is was my heart, so I have an appointment set for Primary Children's in the 18th of October. Hope there is NO REJECTION.

Hospital Stay Again....

On Tuesday of last week, I got sick, I was in my Lang. Art's class and all of the suddenly I got really nauseated, and so I ran to the bath room and puked, then I went back to class and told my teacher,and
she told me just to sit down and then I got really dizzy so I decided to check my blood sugar and it was Low it was down to 75. So My teacher gave me a sucker to suck on at least that lasted till my brother picked me up and took me home. When I got home I decided to eat a Candy bar so i did and my sugar got to a stable level, which was good, That night I puked twice.
 
The Next Morning I woke up and couldn't even stand up so I called Jerry a very good friend of my mom's, and told him that I was sick and that I was puking and couldn't even keep water down, but my pill's stayed down which was a good thing. My appointment was  set for 2:30 p.m. We went to my appointment and Dr.Nygaard wasn't in, but his partner was so we had to see Dr.Larson, and we went in the weighed me and took my Vital Sign's, My vital sign's were okay, but my wight was very low I was 91 Pound's from 95 Pound's about 2 week's ago, so i lost like 4 Pound's in less than 2 week's which was not good, so Dr.Larson called Dr.Nygaard's Cell and explained him the saturation, so they decided to admit me and give IV Fluid's cause I was So dehydrated. We left the Clinic and went strait to the Hospital. So I got in my room, an they got all the paper work and filled it out then, they did some Lab's, and then they had to give me an IV, They poked me 4 time's and never got it, the first one infiltrated, and the second one, the third one, the nurse didn't get it into the vein , and the forth they got it but, and anesthesiologist had to do it and he got it, FINALLY...
 
Then I stayed the night for two night's and got fluid's, so they discharged me Thursday Night, and I was Feeling Better. So I Went Home. Everything was good and then......... 

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Thumper's Brithday September 2nd, 2012

Well, for the past has been very busy for me and sad, Well Thumper turned 4 years old  on the 2nd,

and it was an amazing small party, well went to cold stone and got ice cream it was so good. ,than we

 went to Kohl's and i got a cute out fit with a Justin Bieber  shirt and some cute skinny jeans with like

 gold jewels. And I took my first CNA test, and it was not very great, so I have to study more. the sad

 thing was that my father died, i well writ a post later about that, it's too much right know  for me.

I have to go to class know, Post Back Later.....

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Kaidence Got Her New Heart

Kaidence Got Her New Heart on  Augest 13th, 2012.

This is For You Kaidence and Your Mom.

Hey It's Megan And Paula, We are So Happy For Kaidence that she got a heart, we love You. HUGS , KISSES , LOVE AND PRAYS. <3 p="p">

Garage Sale/Fundraiser (316 S 2450 E #30 St. George,Utah)

There is a fundraiser for Megan Birk tomorrow thru Saturday. Aug 23 12 noon - 5 pm, Aug 24th 7:30 am - 5 pm, Aug 25th 7:30 - 5 pm. Various great items and great deals. All proceeds donated to Megan's Heart For Life Supplimentary Fund. All donations are appreciated at Village Bank St. George Branch.http://megansheartforlife.blogspot.com/?spref=fb

What's Been Going On For the Past 2 -3 Mounth's

Well, I graduated high school in May, then I got sick and was Admitted to Primary Children's For Having C- Diff. I having admitted to Primary Children's For Relapsed C- Diff For the past 3 Months. I was Admitted on June 12- July 4th, Cause of Puking and not keeping my Med's Down, and when I was in the Hospital they test for C- Diff, and of course it was Positive, They had to put me NPO for like 2 week's cause my Feeding tube was staying in i kept throwing it up. So I was on TPN and Lipid's for a long time, then I was getting better slowly.

When I was in the Hospital my Heart buddy's came to visit me, Miabella and Abby. It was Abby's 1 year Anniversary of her new Heart Transplant.
After I got discharged, I went down to Price Utah, to visit my grandparent's and I got Sick again, but insted of life Flight my mom just drove up to SLC, and i was admitted for only 1 day, that was the fastest hospital stay in my whole in tire life.

So Know I am doing really good. I well post again soon.


Sunday, July 1, 2012

Sorry, For Not Bloging For Six Months

So For the past months, I have been admitted now 4 times in the hospital at Primary Children's and Dixie Regional  in St.George.  I turned 19 and I graduated fro.m Tuachan High in Ivins, Utah

Saturday, January 14, 2012

After months in hospital, Utah girl gets Christmas wish

BY JULIA LYON
Here’s what Megan Birk doesn’t have anymore:
The heart she was born with; the new model is nicknamed Thumper. Most of her colon. Her spleen, her appendix, part of her stomach and her pancreas.
Megan dreams of Red Lobster — shrimp scampi, snow crab, cheese biscuits — because she hasn’t regularly eaten solid food since spring. When her mom, Paula Birk, recently brought Greek takeout into Primary Children’s Medical Center, its spicy scent wafting toward her wistful daughter, Paula realized she should leave the room. Sometimes Megan asks to smell her food.
The teenager has spent years of her life in hospitals, defying doctors’ expectations after her premature birth, then a bout with leukemia, and again after cancer treatment damaged her heart. Last spring, she was leaping and turning in a dance performance at Tuacahn High School for the Performing Arts near St. George.
Days later she was strapped to a gurney, being flown to Primary Children’s as new tumors bulged from her side.
Once again, she wasn’t just sick, but deadly sick.
"I knew what would happen," said Megan, 18. "I thought I’d have to go through all that cancer stuff again. I got really scared."
For most of her senior year, Megan has been at Primary Children’s with her mother sleeping next to her almost every night. When her favorite teacher, her choir director, takes attendance at Tuacahn, he always asks whether Megan’s back. Not yet.As the sopranos warmed up in class in December, Megan lay in the dark in Salt Lake City, with Christmas lights draped over the bags of fluids on a pole helping to keep her alive.

"If she was going to die, she would have been dead this time," Paula said. "She wants to do her homework."More than 150 children will be at Primary Children’s this Christmas, where Santa will visit them as they sleep surrounded by blinking monitors and intravenous tubes. As the holidays approached, Paula hoped Megan would not be one of them.

This is, after all, a girl who was born 10 weeks early weighing about 1.5 pounds, the smaller of identical twins. Baby Megan caught pneumonia when she was about four days old and doctors told her mom she would never go home. Three years later, leukemia assaulted her and doctors once again predicted she might not survive. The treatment hurt her heart, leading to a transplant when Megan was 15.
For teenagers like Megan who receive a heart transplant, over half are alive 12 to 15 years afterwards. She was among the survivors, dancing at her new school, swimming in the pool and getting ice cream with her family. Her future was filled with possibilities.
And then one day last spring, Megan felt so nauseous at school she couldn’t eat lunch. When she couldn’t keep down food, water or even her heart medication, her brother, Lamar, took her to the emergency room in St. George. Doctors saw a large mass in her abdomen and rushed her to Primary Children’s.
A biopsy identified a Desmoid tumor. Although considered benign, it invades, spreading like octopus arms into tissue. One of the edges of Megan’s tumor was next to vessels that feed most of the intestines and stomach. After surgery, tumor cells likely remain — but they are too close to the major vessels for surgeons to remove them.The cause of the tumor, which can recur, remains unknown.

"I always tell Megan and Paula too, ‘You won the bad lottery,’ " said Holly Spraker, Megan’s oncologist. "It’s not fair to even get one thing, but she’s had multiple cancers now and multiple problems."
The tumor invaded part of her pancreas, some of which had to be removed. Because the pancreas didn’t heal properly, the teen had problems eating solid food over the summer. She was initially in the hospital for about three months.
The suffering can still take Megan by surprise. Chemotherapy exhausted her and made her throw up. She cried because she got so scared.
"I gave up once," Megan remembered, when she was waiting for her heart. She gave up again when she first heard about the tumor.
"But then I say to myself I can’t give up because if I do — it won’t work," she said. "Nothing will help."The cause of the tumor, which can recur, remains unknown.

"I always tell Megan and Paula too, ‘You won the bad lottery,’ " said Holly Spraker, Megan’s oncologist. "It’s not fair to even get one thing, but she’s had multiple cancers now and multiple problems."
The tumor invaded part of her pancreas, some of which had to be removed. Because the pancreas didn’t heal properly, the teen had problems eating solid food over the summer. She was initially in the hospital for about three months.
The suffering can still take Megan by surprise. Chemotherapy exhausted her and made her throw up. She cried because she got so scared.
"I gave up once," Megan remembered, when she was waiting for her heart. She gave up again when she first heard about the tumor.
"But then I say to myself I can’t give up because if I do — it won’t work," she said. "Nothing will help."As for her own future, "I either want to be a heart doctor or a cancer doctor for little babies," Megan said from her St. George home, acknowledging her repeated illnesses may make performing surgery difficult."If I can keep my hand steady, then I can probably do it, but it will take a lot of work," she said.

Megan’s identical twin, Jackie, is healthy but figures her sister is a lot stronger than she is.
"I always tell my mom, ‘Why can’t I take something? Why can’t I take her illness and not have her suffer for such a long time?’ "
In November, Megan was back in the hospital for doctors to cut out a cyst that had grown on her pancreas. They also removed a connection that had developed between her pancreas and her colon, allowing the potential spread of bacteria, taking out more of both organs in the process.
The planned two-week stay turned into a downward spiral of emergencies. Internal bleeding led to emergency surgery and more removal of Megan’s colon. She was briefly on a ventilator.
Her mom began to worry about a funeral, as she had many times before.
"You go through the whole procedure — will I do what she wants?" Paula thought. "I lay in bed and I think, ‘What colors?’ ‘Who’s going to help me?’ "
But once again, as Christmas approached, Megan began to recover.During the latest hospital stay, Paula felt it was finally the right time to contact the family who gave Megan her precious Thumper. They sent a letter this month.

"Whoever gave my daughter the chance to live needs to know she takes care of their heart," she said. "She doesn’t take advantage of it."Small in stature with a high voice that suggests she is younger than her age, Megan has the maturity to understand the impact her cascade of illnesses has had on her family, particularly her mom. Divorced from their dad, who lives in Germany, Paula has raised the teen, her three brothers and one sister essentially on her own.

"I always tell her I’m sorry for everything because it’s a lot of money," Megan said.
But her mother sees what her daughter cannot.
"I live with an angel," Paula says. "I’m a very lucky woman."
On Friday, Megan earned her wings. She had the strength to walk up 24 hospital stairs and was healthy enough to eat steak and salmon.
With her mom and sister, she drove home to St. George to join her brother Lamar and her new puppy, a white Maltese, for Christmas.
She’ll be back soon for more tests. But for now, Megan’s proved — once again — she’s ready to fly.