The Ashley Albright Memorial Pottery Scholarship Foundation Inc.

Ashley's Battle

Ashley was born on a single digit cold morning in January, 1982.  She was an exceptionally bright and beautiful young girl and developed normally until age five.  She was smart, intelligent, and compassionate. 

In the fall of 1987, Ashley developed a weekend cold and was taken to the Doctor on a Monday.  By Wednesday, she was lethargic and she was returned to her doctor that afternoon.  Upon arrival at the doctors office, she went into a coma from complications of spinal meningitis.  She stayed in the coma at Rex Hospital in Raleigh until Sunday when she began a steady improvement.  Two weeks later, she was her old self and was doing remarkably well.   Suddenly, her condition began to worsen and she again became lethargic and was transferred to Duke University as a salvage patient.  Her meningitis had progressed to encephalitis.  The infection in the lining of her brain almost took her at this time but she was not ready and she fought back and survived but was not uninjured.  A very injured little girl was released from Duke two weeks later, unable to walk or feed herself.

Ashley was aware of her problems and the damage to her brain.  She would fight epileptic seizures and psychosis the rest of her life.  Having once been exceptionally bright, she became a bright youngster.  She continued to fight the battle and try to conquer the disease with various combinations of drugs and by spending weeks at Duke Hospital in testing with scans and electrodes mounted on her head to try to locate the injured area of her brain.  When these tests were inconclusive, she went to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for a repeat of these tests.  After the repeat tests were unsuccessful, she underwent brain surgery where an electron grid was placed directly on her brain and damaged areas were mapped to try to determine if the damaged areas could be removed.   After undergoing open brain surgery twice, she was left to experimentation with drug therapy to try and control her seizures.   Every old drug, new drug, and combinations of the new drugs were tried without success.  She was even given a drug not approved in the USA by the FDA that had to purchased from a pharmacy in England.

For years she experimented with combinations of drugs.  In 1999, an experimental device was implanted into Ashley that sent direct electrical stimulation to her brain in an effort to control the seizures.  She was able with a magnet to set the device off when she felt she was going to have a seizure by swiping a magnet over the device.  While the device helped some and allowed a reduction in the handful of pills she took daily, it too was unsuccessful.

Even with all of her problems, she was truly a light unto herself and an example for all to follow.  Her face shined with its happy brightness and her greetings with a hug hello and goodbye were as natural to her as breathing.  She could even manage a smile when she was having bad days.  Ashley knew when the disease was going to strike and she could tell others when she needed help.    She was protected and loved by family and friends.  Her innocence and loving ways charmed all who knew her.

Ashley was very creative and her talents surfaced in her pottery.  She could wheel throw small pots but her specialty was decorating the pots with birds, worms, beetles, bugs and a sundry of comical creatures.  She specialized in comical whistles of birds, turtles, rabbits, cats and in creature laden candle holders.  Lots of potters worked with Ashley and she incorporated her lessons into her work. 

She died on a Sunday from complications of the disease she had fought for nineteen years. 

Ashley Elizabeth Albright
January 25, 1982 - December 10, 2006

Read Ashley's Story

The Ashley Albright Memorial Pottery Scholarship Foundation A non profit scholarship foundation has  been created in the name of Ashley.  The Foundation will give annual scholarships to a needy and talented student in the Pottery Program at Montgomery Community College. 

Donations may be made at Fidelity Bank in Ramseur or directly to the Foundation. 

The Ashley Albright Memorial Pottery Scholarship Foundation
c/o  Ben Albright, Attorney at Law
101 Weatherly Square
Ramseur, N.C. 27316