Ashley (Fifi) Armstrong

Ashley is an amazing, loving, funny girl.  She has the biggest heart and is one of the bravest kids I know.  10 years ago when Ashley was 2, she ate a spinach salad that would forever change the course of our family's journey.  She contracted E. coli, which turned into HUS.  HUS, Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, is a condition that destroys red blood cells  and causes those shredded cells to block the organs where they land in the blood stream.  HUS caused Ashley's kidneys to fail and we spent 2 months living at Riley Children's Hospital while Ashley fought for her life.

But Ashley is a fighter.  She was at two, and she is still a fighter now.  Ashley has been living with Kidney Disease as a result of our fight with HUS.  She has been able to maintain a "normal" life with medications, watching her diet and visiting her Nephrologist every three months for check-ups and lab work.  We knew going into puberty that it was going to be hard on her remaining kidney function.  Her Nephrologist has actually been surprised (pleasantly) that she has not needed a transplant before now.  (She originally gave us 3-7 years.)

But now we start a new phase in our journey.  Ashley is heading into kidney failure and she is going to need a kidney transplant in the very near future.  We are very blessed that both myself and Michael are a match to give her one of our kidneys.  Michael's kidney is the better match, so we have been completing the rounds of testing involved in making sure he is a match. 

This site will serve as a one-stop-shop for disseminating information to all of our amazing family and friends who love our daughter as much as we do. 

Ashley has been a gift from God from the beginning and it has been amazing to watch His hand through all of this.