Angela Dawn Bliss was born on March 7, 1977. Because her brother Bill was born by emergency C-Section, she needed to be born C-Section also. A miscalculation resulted in her being delivered 2 weeks early instead of one, so she had some jaundice and had to be placed in the sunshine by the window every day. That quickly passed and she was beautiful, sweet, cuddly and a joy to her mother.
She fell once on the hearth trying to reach her dad’s trophies. It pushed her front tooth into her gum. It came back down, but eventually turned gray.
She was not happy when her mom left her for a few days and came home with a little brother when she was 17 months old. She decided to switch from being a mommy’s girl to a daddy’s girl and ignored her mom for a few weeks.
She was very bright and talented. She was also tall. Once when her family was flying to visit her grandparents is California, the people at the airlines had a hard time believing she was under the age of two since she spoke in complete sentences and was as tall as a 3 year old.
She took dance lessons and picked it up quickly. Her lessons included gymnastics, but she was told she was too tall to really keep it up. She did well in school even though she was shy.
Her sister Alisa was born next.
She played softball on a coach pitch team that was mostly boys. It was funny when coaches from other teams would call their boys to move in and then Angie would hit a home run over their heads. Soon all coaches would have their teams back out whenever she came up.
Sports were important to her dad, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. She gained a little weight and was determined to exercise and lose it. She took a class at high school that included weight lifting, running the bleachers, and running the mile. The grade was based on how much their time improved on the mile. Unfortunately no matter how hard she tried, she got slower and slower.
When she went on a hike at girls camp and once when she went fishing with her brothers and cousins at high altitudes she fainted. She married and once passed out at BYU. The doctors never thought it was serious.
When her daughter Skylee was born, it was a difficult delivery with a lot of bleeding. When she went home, she passed out a few times and called her doctor. It went to voicemail and she left a message asking the doctor to call her if it was anything to worry about, but never received a call. She assumed at first it was because of the loss of so much blood. Since they didn’t have insurance, she didn’t go back to the doctor. The fainting continued. Skylee was even more advanced than her mom and was crawling at 5 months. They propped up mattresses by the doors to protect Skylee from hurting herself when Angie passed out. At 7 months Skylee was walking holding onto furniture and by 7 1/2 months she was walking on her own. Because she was beginning to climb over the mattresses, Angie decided to go to the doctor anyway. The doctor sent her to Dr. Allen, a cardiologist, who diagnosed her with Primary Pulmonary Hypertension. She was sent to LDS Hospital, one of only four places that specialize in PPH. She also was sent over to U of U Hospital for her HHT. Serious nosebleeds run in her family. And her mother was recently diagnosed with Hereditary Hemmoragic Teliangectasia.
U of U was one of two locations researching that disease and Angie was the 2nd PPH patient to also have HHT. Both very rare. After researching the gene disorder they discovered that in some cases the same gene responsible for HHT can cause PPH.
She was willing to help out with a drug study for a new medication for PPH. The study was fairly well advanced in the trials and doctors could tell within weeks whether she was on the placebo or the real thing. Unfortunately she had received a placebo, but needed to complete the test to have it count for the study. Her disease was advancing fairly quickly, but she bravely continued the test. Worried that she may die soon, we went to San Diego with her so she could go to Sea World, the ocean, and the zoo. At Sea World she was sitting in her wheelchair waiting for the show to start when a Japanese woman in a motorized wheelchair came crashing into her. It knocked her right out of the chair and bent the wheel. Speaking only in Japanese, we assumed they were apologizing and the man tried to straighten the wheel, but they just left.
While in San Diego she got her breathing got worse and worse and she puffed up. She called her doctor and they determined she was having congestive heart failure. She was prescribed a diuretic and ordered to come back home ASAP, so she didn’t get to go to the zoo. ASAP turned out to be longer than we thought as the diuretic caused her to need every gas station we could find on the way home.
It was determined that she needed a heart/lung transplant. The transplant board said they would approve her if she lost 50 pounds. This was no easy request as much of it was water weight and due to her lung condition she could not exercise. She was a very determined person though. The doctor put her on a protein diet that was very difficult and she stuck to it and lost the 50 pounds. So she made the transplant list, but she was at the bottom of the list and warned that it could be some time. Her condition was worsening quickly.
Three days later, she got the page and we rushed her up to U of U. It seems that for once, being tall was an advantage. All the other people waiting on the list were elderly or children and the lungs belonged to a large young man who lost his life in a car accident. She had to be prepped for surgery before even finding out if they were a match. Miracles of miracles, they were. They decided to transplant only the lungs, not the heart. They hoped the heart would recover once it did not have to work so hard.
Her loving family waited in the waiting room through a 7 hour surgery. Finally we were told she was out and we could see her in around an hour. That hour turned into 5, but we got to see her. It was such a sight that is is hard to describe. There were four banks of IV stands with about 6 bags of fluids and medications on each. She had a respirator, a catheter draining fluid from her incision, and heart and blood pressure monitors. She was very frustrated that she could not talk and that when she tried to write her hand shook so much she couldn’t. We later found out that many of her systems had shut down and they had to work feverishly to keep her alive. Day by day her different body functions resumed.
She fought to recover and was so brave. She did it for her daughter Skylee. Her little family was living in the downstairs of her parents. She had to submit to bronchial exams where they would take bits of lung tissue to test for rejection. At about 3 months out, one of the bronchs gave her pneumonia. Her husband decided his needs weren’t being met and left. Angela followed every medical instruction and became better and better. Throughout all of this she became very skilled at all the medical terminology. She amazed the doctors and nurses at the knowledge she picked up. Dr. Barbara Cahill, her lung doctor, was so committed to do everything she could to help Angie. Her nurse Tauna also played a big part in her life, but also her family’s. We appreciate them both.
She was tough and strong and improved to the point that her doctor felt she was no longer disabled. She went to Provo College and took Medical Office Management and graduated at the top of her class. She easily received employment at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Admissions. She amazed her co-workers in her amazing ability with medical terminology and insurance coding.
She enjoyed working there and and she was quite independent and a good mother to Skylee. After a time of improving quality of life, she was excited to move to a new location in Spanish Fork in the lower level of a home owned by her friend Katie. We helped her move in, and warned her to wait until the following day when we would come help her unpack. Always the organized one, she couldn’t wait and continued to lift boxes, move furniture and arrange her apartment. When we came the next day, it was almost all done. She went to the pharmacy to get the medications she had requested refills a few days earlier. She had finished her current prescription the day before. The pharmacy did not have them and did not have any in stock. They would order some, but it would be 2 days. They called nearby pharmacies, but none had what she needed in stock. She waited the 2 days and went to pick them up. The pharmacy received the wrong anti-rejection medications. She called her doctor and said she had to have something immediately, so she took the ones they had instead of her regular ones.
To avoid this from happening again, Dr. Cahill arranged to have her medications mailed to her regularly. However, the damage had been done. Between the extreme exertion she place on her body while moving and not having the meds she needed, Angie began to reject her lungs. The doctors did everything they could to stop the process and turn it around. It was gradual process, but it wouldn’t be stopped. Eventually Angie was faced with the challenge of deciding to have another transplant. Remembering the pain of having her sternum broken and her ribs pulled apart and wired back together. Being poked more than a pin cushion, the ailments and pneumonias, she decided once again that Skylee needed her and was willing to submit to everything once again.
This time the call came on April 1st. She was sure it was an April Fool’s joke, but it was real. This time, they just gave her one lung and gave a smoker the other one. While still very hard, the procedures had improved and this time the scar was on her back instead of from each side curving up to the center front.
She was often discouraged that she would never marry again, because she was sure no one would take on all of her medical problems, not to mention that she was 6 foot 2 inches tall and the steroids she had to take added weight to her frame. She said that since she never went out, she wouldn’t meet anyone anyway.
Even though her ex-husband was out of her life, she kept ties with his family and wanted Skylee to know them. One day, her former sister-in-law called her and handed her the phone to talk to a man that did plumbing for her father. They just clicked and talked for some time. He often came to her house and they would talk for hours. It moved towards love. She loved his daughters, Tayzia and Haylee. She married Shawn Hansen on May 31, 2008 and they became a family. Later they were sealed in the Jordan River Temple on April 9, 2011. He eventually adopted Skylee.
Her new dad supported her volleyball. Skylee is a very good volleyball player and loves to play.
Being a plumber, Shawn is used to less than pleasant sights and dealt just fine with Angie’s ailments. Angie was organized and kept things running smoothly, something that is harder for Shawn. Each of their strengths balanced the other’s weaknesses.
She enjoyed doing crafts, making hair flowers, and knit hats for gifts. She always remembered everyone’s special events and sent cards for birthdays, anniversaries, and Christmas. She was always remembering and organizing birthday parties. We depended on her for that.
Angie helped out so much with her father’s illnesses. After her mom’s new job didn’t have sick days or much leave time, she took him to all his doctor appointments. She was a blessing to her mom and dad. Her father passed away September 1, 2012.
In November of 2012, Angela was diagnosed with the Lymphoma and was in the hospital all but 12 days from that point on. Shawn was by her side as much as possible. Their love grew stronger during that time.
Once the Lymphoma spread to her brain, everything went downhill fast. Even though the doctors told her it was not curable, she fought it aggressively until they wanted to put her back on continuous dialysis and a respirator again because her potassium and CO2 levels were elevating quickly. She refused to do it again. Family all rushed to be with her. Her brother Bill flew in from Washington. We all got alone time to say goodbye. She returned to her Heavenly Father at 7:11 pm on February 28th at the age of 35 from Post Transplant Lymphoma.
She was diagnosed with Primary Pulmonary Hypertension after the birth of her daughter, received a double-lung transplant, and years later after rejection, underwent a single lung transplant. The medications that prolonged her life eventually brought about the cancer which ultimately caused her death. She battled the lymphoma in her abdomen in her usual determined way and we thought she was gaining ground, but an illness interrupted the treatment and the cancer spread to her brain.
She was a valiant fighter, smart, organized, a strength and help to her family, devoted to her friends. Faced pain to be there for her daughter and husband. She will be missed by all who knew and loved her.