Sweet Aimee!

Well as many of you have heard and know, my sweet little 17 year old niece passed away recently from a rare blood clot in her brain. It has been such a crazy idea to get used to her being gone. Many of you have asked what happened so I thought I would blog about it to all. So Aimee had been having head aches like we all get from time to time, but they were really disabling her. My sister Wendee was really concerned and had taken her for a an MRI and blood work and countless doctor appointments, all of them came back normal saying she was in great condition and that she checked out great. It was really frustrating especially for Aimee and Wendee who were trying to get to the bottom of these headaches. Well she continued to get sicker and sicker from these headaches till one night at a Sunday dinner at my mom's she was in horrible pain and she was taken to Riverton Hospital where they found blood on her brain. She was taken by ambulance up to Primary Children's Hospital and admitted. After many tests and lots of Ct's and such they found a huge clot on her brain called a sinus Veinus Thrombosis. They were pushing lots of blood thinners and medications to her through an IV. On Tuesday of that week they moved her to NICU ""Neuro intensive care unit." We were all in shock, they found at that time she had a couple blood disorders that were making the situation much much worse. She had Factor 5, and Protein C resistance. the combination of those two clotting disorders is a really bad combination and was making it impossible for the blood thinners to clear up the clot. She was getting really confused about things such as people and was in terrible pain. By Thursday they decided to do brain surgery to remove the clot in her brain. She was moved Thursday over to The University of Utah Hospital to get her surgery. Before taking her there they placed a bult in her head to measure the pressures in her brain. Your pressures should be at 15 and on the way to the hospital she was going between 50 and 60. Those are high, but they got much higher throughout the next few hours. We all waited in a waiting room as a family for the surgery to be complete. About an hour into the surgery a doctor came out and told us that her brain pressures were going upwards in the 100's. She also said that it was not likely she would make it through the surgery with these kinds of pressures. We were all in shock and so so so sad to hear such crappy news. Many prayers were offered pleading for a miracle on Aimee's behalf. After a very long 4 hrs the surgeon came out and told us she had made it through the surgery and it had been successful, but that she was still very very sick. We were all so excited that she might have a chance to get better. We all left and got home anywhere from 2-4am. Shortly after getting home I received a call saying she had suffered cardiac arrest and a massive stroke. This was such a shock and made me horribly sad. The next morning we went to the hospital to have a family meeting about Aimee. They told us in a nut shell that the stroke had completely destroyed the left side of her brain and showed us images of them as well. She was on life support and a respirator by this point. It was so hard to see sweet little Aimee like this and feel so helpless. It was so awful to see Wendee have to go through this, but she was and has been like a rock. We spent the day with Aimee being able to go in and hold her hand and talk with her but she had suffered what the doctors kept calling a brain death. Many times at the hospital I could feel her in the room, but I did not feel like her spirit was still in her body at this point. There were so many neat and very spiritual things that happened during this time. We were all so emotional and I honestly feel that the reason that happens is because the veil is so very thin and many of our loved ones who have already passed are close by. Saturday her stats started getting very bad and we decided to take her off life support. I can not imagine having to make that decision and I hope I never will, but Wendee was so in tune with the spirit at all of the different phases of this process. The donation team learned of her disorder and let us know that not all of her organs would be viable. We donated the ones we could and she was taken off Life support right before midnight that Saturday night. She passed very peacefully into her Father in heavens arms at 11:59pm Saturday January 14th. We teased that she made it home by midnight! I have never been around someone when they died, but it was a really peaceful thing. I was able to do her hair and pick out an outfit for her with my sweet sister Katie. It was really healing to be able to get her looking better and dressed up so cute. Every day I have to tell myself this really happened and try and get used to it. I guess heavenly Father has a really important plan for her to do, because everything that happened seems like it all fit into a puzzle. I love little Aimee and I am going to miss her so much. She was always so good with my kids, but now I can feel rest assured that anymore kids I have are in great hands with Angee my sister, and Aimee! You just never know how long this mortal life will be, so you have to take everyday and make it lasting! Since she died we are all in the process of being tested and so far me, Josi, Jake, and my mom are all positive for the blood disorder factor 5. It seems scary, but I am getting used to the idea. 1 in 20 people have factor 5, so it is actually pretty common. I am thankful for Aimee, I know that before we came here to earth she signed up to be a pioneer and save so many in the next generation. She was and still is an amazing girl. I am so grateful for the plan of salvation. We are blessed and I am so grateful for a wonderful family! Hope all is well with each of you, I will post some pictures and catch you up on the Richardson household soon! No, that is no kind of announcement....... I promise!