A Big Set-Back for Rhonda

Headed back to ICU

My sweet wife of 39 years, Rhonda, has been in the hospital for just shy of  two weeks and seemed to be improving. They were even talking about sending her to rehab on Monday or Tuesday…and then everything changed.

On Sunday Rhonda started complaining of severe pain in her lower back. That is something completely out of character for her. The staff at the hospital thought it was a pulled muscle or something from the movement the physical therapy was doing with her. They gave her some fairly strong pain meds to help with the back pain, along with a muscle relaxer. It did nothing for the pain and then her blood pressure numbers started dropping and they could not get them to come up and stay up. They had to give her medicine to counteract the opioid pain medicines, but still couldn’t get her blood pressure to stabilize. They began pushing a lot of fluids and her numbers kept getting lower. They did multiple blood draws and most of her numbers were very good. Then they noticed that her hemoglobin level was down, and dropping.

At that point, about midnight, she was moved to ICU and put back on a ventilator. They suspected she had internal bleeding, but her blood pressure was not stable enough to do a CT Scan of her abdomen. They took her into interventional radiology at about 4:00 am where the surgeons went in, located and repaired the bleed. In all they gave her 8 units of blood products (whole blood, platelets, plasma). The bleeding was causing the back pain.

This is a big set back and will be complicated by the fact she is normally on blood thinners. Please pray for her strength, for their to be no more bleeds, and that she can get off of the ventilator.

Life is very fragile. Every day is a gift from God. Cherish every moment of it. Don’t waste a single day outside of God’s plan for your life. Be thankful for every day God gives you with your family. I am so thankful that I still have my wife today and that our family has their mother and Nana.

I am thankful for all of the many friends who have reached out to say that you are praying for Rhonda and our family.

The Brandenburg Family.