Support Halie Ast’s Battle and Recovery From Aplastic Anemia

Halie Ast is our granddaughter. She is 22 years young. We, Kathy & Rudy,  have started this to assist Halie and her family financially as she battles a health crisis. In September 2024, Halie was not feeling well and was diagnosed with Bone Marrow Failure. Her working diagnosis is Aplastic Anemia. 

Halie is being treated at the Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) clinic and Kansas University Medical Center (KUMC).

A bone marrow transplant is the only cure. The process for a transplant started immediately and FOUR FULL donor matches were found. More testing was done to confirm, but this is the most hopeful news she has received since this started.

The process for a BMT is a long road that involves 5-7 straight days of daily chemo/radiation in KC as an outpatient. Halie is then admitted to the hospital for at least two weeks for the actual transplant. Afterwards, Halie and at least one caregiver (Nicki Ast and Derek Ast, parents, or Dakota Clontz, significate other) had to stay within 30 minutes of KUMC for 100 days! That is FOUR MONTHS living in KC. Nevada, MO is too far away, so they had to find a place to live during this time.

While Halie was waiting for the transplant, she had to travel to KC TWICE a week for lab work, doctor visits, procedures, and blood transfusions, if needed. She can't drive herself, which means Nicki, Derek, or Dakota had to miss work to drive her. Halie cannot work for 6 months to a year, maybe even longer during all this due to her risk of infection and bleeding.

Today, December 23, 2024, was a discharge day from the hospital! Now apartment life until released by the team of doctors! Thank you all for your support, financially, emotionally and spiritually. Halie still has a road ahead of her but hopefully paved not rocky!!

Day 0, November 29, 2024, Transplant Day. Cells were flown in on November 28, 2024, and ready to go the next morning. The transplant lasted almost 2 hours.  Thank you for the donations and prayers. But we aren’t done yet! It takes 2-3 weeks for “engraftment” to occur!

Halie was discharged from the hospital on December 23, 2024.  Apartment life in Kansas City until released by her team of doctors.  This has been a horrific financial, emotional and spiritual experience so far. Halie still has a very long road ahead of her!!

February 23, 2025, Halie is doing well with her numbers and will get to go home soon but she can’t go back to work for 6 months to a year, maybe longer! Halie will need financial assistance for quite a while. 

February 27, 2025, was another big day for Halie. It will be day 100, tomorrow is her bone marrow biopsy since her transplant and her port will be removed. This will tell how her bone marrow transplant went. The family will not get her results for a week. Bone marrow biopsy went GREAT! Trifusion catheter removal was not her cup of tea. Two shots of lidocaine… line didn’t want to come out so they were tugging pretty good on it. Praying Halie’s results come back and saying it’s working 30%-40%!!!!  Fun fact! Halie learned at her appointment that no adults’ bone marrow is ever 100%! Only babies are close to 100%! How to know what percentage your bone marrow should be working is you take 100 subtracted from your age! Halie’s bone marrow will hopefully work close to 77% down the road! 

The doctors released Halie on February 28, 2025; to go back home, the family can now go back to their home in Nevada, MO. Halie still must go to KC twice a week for labs and other appointments!

Halie is doing great with her recovery but financially needs your help!! She wants to get back to work so much but the doctors have said she can’t drive while taking one of her medications. That’s a BIG problem when you are a rural route mail carrier.   

After a little scare on, March 11, 2025, the family got some good news they have been waiting on! This morning Halie had some kind of reaction to the breathing treatment, and she started having a very difficult time breathing, after some oxygen and an inhaler… Halie was still short of breath but feeling much better. The good news the family got from the bone marrow biopsy tests shows Halie is officially 100% donor and that’s coming from a true source!!!  FYI! 40% is how much her bone marrow is working! Halie’s cells are now 100% donor!!

The lab’s numbers are not the best right now, ups and down. The doctor is switching some medication around and having Halie start on new medicine to see if that will help. 

Halie does another bone marrow biopsy and recieves 5 baby type vaccines at the end of the May 2025. Praying for these results is even better than last time! Say a prayer when Halie gets these vaccines… FIVE at once

Today, May 27, 2025, was another challenging day. Bone marrow biopsy day. Send some prayers Halie’s way. Halie was in good spirits going back for the procedure. The nurses turned on the music Halie requested. They started the procedure and then Halie was in so much pain. She was screaming and couldn’t handle the pain. They ended up knocking her completely out… during this, Halie stopped breathing, and they had to stop what they were doing to get her to start breathing again

Developed a rash on June 12, 2025, and back to KC.  Skin biopsy came back, NOT GVHD!!! Thank goodness!!! It showed Halie had an allergic reaction, the doctors are thinking from one of the vaccines.

Had to make another special trip to KU on June 13, 2025… one thing after another. Halie has swollen lymph nodes in a few different spots. Dr put her on an antibiotic and if that doesn’t fix it then more testing. (Have a transplant… it’s fun stuff)

Another update on Halie’s bone marrow transplant journey! Since the skin has been having a lot of issues lately, on June 19, 2025, Halie went and saw a transplant dermatologist who specializes in GVHD on skin. After seeing her, Halie HAS been diagnosed with GVHD. Refresher on GVHD: it is when your body does NOT recognize the donor’s cells and starts attacking them. This can cause a lot of issues and sometimes even death. My GVHD gets triggered by being outside in the sun and the heat, even if it’s for a few minutes. Halie is on a higher dose of medication and has some cream to put on the skin as well. Halie has been told to stay out of the sun and the heat to prevent it from flaring up. Continuing to have this flare up can make it spread everywhere on my body and become very dangerous. It is hard for Halie to stay inside; Halie must do this to keep herself safe and healthy. 

On June 30, 2025, Halie had to be checked back in to the KCMC, because of an infection somewhere, but all of the antibiotics have been helping. The family are still waiting on all the testing to come back to see where the infection is but feeling good enough to get checked out of the hospital!! Next few days is strong antibiotics and lots of resting.

On July 3, 2025, Halie’s heart is so happy! She feels 100% better!  And the counts are coming back up! Halie will now be going to the doctors twice a week for labs again!!  All the tick disease test came back NEGATIVE. Thank goodness because they’ve had patients lose their lives because we are not strong enough to fight those things off!

On July 7, 2025, the doctor says Halie is on full house arrest. No outside time. And no “running around” — Halie informed him she doesn’t run around or go around anyone as he’s ordered. Halie needs to make sure she’s getting plenty of rest and not overdoing it. 

Halie’s time to “live” will come soon enough, just must be “boring” for a little longer.  Halie can’t go back to work until the doctor says she can, so who knows! 

Please support this family during these trying times as they face many expenses related to Halie's illness. These include, but are not limited to medical bills, lodging, food, transportation, mortgage payments, household bills, and lost wages.  God Bless you for your support!